Allison Westfahl '07 has been selected as one of three U.S. students to represent the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) in the annual Irish/U.S. Debate at nationals in March.
Westfahl will be joined by Carrie Robin Menapace, Northern Arizona University, and Matt Paxton, Western Washington University, to debate the Irish champions on Thursday, March 22, in Colorado Springs, prior to the National Parliamentary Debate Championship at Colorado College. The Americans will be opposed by Ireland's three best debaters, who will be chosen at the Irish Times debate final at Trinity College, Dublin, this month.
Westfahl is a double major in mathematics and government. When not winning debate awards, the CMCer is often presenting papers at academic conferences, including the Arizona Mathematics Conference. (One of her recent papersA Non-Smooth Band Around a Non-Convex Regioncoauthored by Adam Cox '06, Christopher Jones '06 and faculty members Mario Martelli and Jorge Aarao, has since been published by The College Mathematics Journal).
Among a score of tournament championships and other team awards, Westfahl and her debate partner finished second at the Point Loma University Round Robin and the National Round Robin, highly selective competitions featuring the top 20 and top 10 ranked debate teams in the country, respectively.
An outstanding individual performer, Westfahl has received the first or second individual speaker prize at national invitational debate tournaments featuring from 100-300 contestants, including first place at the University of California, San Diego, and second place at the University of the Pacific and the Claremont National Open. She also has an outstanding record in international debate events, participating in competitions in Ireland, Canada, China, and Korea. In 2004, she won the Northeast Asian championship in Seoul.
Westfahl accomplishes this while attending fewer tournaments than many top debaters, primarily due to her significant community work. In 2004 she was appointed by the Claremont City Council to serve as a community services commissioner. In that role, she edited the Claremont Wilderness Manual and is involved in the planning of the city's new sports park. She also was selected as a member of the board of trustees for an independent school in Upland, and also directs the school's human resources department.
As the student coordinator of Claremont's Middle School Public Debate Program, the country's largest educational debate outreach network with more than 10,000 students, Westfahl has negotiated with school administrators, produced secondary-school lesson plans and curricular materials, and has participated in public speaking and debate demonstrations.
Westfahl plans to attend law school in fall 2007 and has been admitted to the New York University School of Law.
John Meany, director of The Claremont Colleges Debate Union, says, "Allison is impressive in competitive debates and presentations for general audiences. She is an outstanding selection for the U.S.- Irish event, in which the participants will be expected to inform, persuade, and entertain an audience of 1,000 people."
For 10 years, the annual U.S.-Irish competition has featured the finest undergraduate debaters in the United States against top graduate and law school contestants from Ireland. Allison is the sixth Claremont student selected to participate in the debate more than at any other college.