The Brandeis debate team finished 35th in the 2005 World University Debate Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Brandeis was represented by debate team co-presidents Justin Gelfand '05 and Brian Schon '06 who were the second-best American team behind Yale University.The tournament, held from Dec. 28 to Jan. 4, included close to 1,000 participants from about 400 teams that came from nearly 60 countries.

While the two students narrowly missed the opportunity to compete with the final 32 teams, Gelfand took fourth place in the individual public speaking competition.

"Making the finals was kind of surreal," Gelfand said. "Naturally you go into it nervous to debate with 60 different countries and you kind of wonder what Brandeis is doing there."

What Brandeis was doing there was defeating the top teams from Oxford University, Harvard and Princeton.

"People on the international circuit have heard of us," Schon said. "Brandeis is currently a competitive force in every tournament. If you're debating against a Brandeis team, it's not going to be a pushover."

Attending the World University Debate Championships is just one of many team and individual achievements this year. Brandeis has been ranked as high as sixth in the country in the American Parliamentary Debate Association, the league in which the team competes.

Tournaments are held weekly, and though Brandeis was not currently ranked in the APDA top-10 as of March 12, every Brandeis duo has placed in the top 10 of every tournament they have competed in this year.

In the category of novice debate, which is for first-time debaters, Lina Bensman '06 is currently ranked first in APDA and Mark Samburg '07 is ranked second. For the varsity debaters, Beth Mandel '05 and Andrew Bragin '05 finished in the top-20 at the North American Debate Championships at Cornell University in February.

These accomplishments come after what Gelfand refers to as two "growing years" for the debate team. Brandeis won the North American Championships in 2000, but did not fair as well until this year. Schon attributes this year's improvement to two factors.

"It's a very tight-knit group," Schon said. "When other teams debate against us in a quarterfinal round, they get intimidated when two people from their school are cheering them on and 20 Brandeisians are screaming for their team."

The other important factor this year is that after several years of having graduate student coaches, the debate team is now guided by Emmanuel Schanzer, a former debater and Cornell graduate.

"[Schanzer] has particularly helped us with gaining, teaching and keeping new members," Schon said. "He's helped us take a much more holistic approach to debate, which is one of the reasons we've grown so much this year."

Gelfand is very pleased with the team's performance this year and that gives him a positive outlook or the future.

"On the one level, our varsity debaters have done well winning tournaments and our novices are among the strongest in the nation, which bodes well for the future," he said.

Schon is equally pleased. "I couldn't be more proud to be surrounded by a better group of people," he said.