On March 26, 2023, The New Haven Register published the article, "Amity Regional High School Debate Team Argues Its Way Into Sweet 16 of International Competition." The article profiles one of the final 16 teams remaining in the 22nd annual Brewer Foundation/NYU International Public Policy Forum (IPPF).
Founded in 2001, the IPPF is the first and only debate contest that gives high school students the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy. During the 2022-23 competition, teams are debating the topic, "Resolved: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an effective model for international cooperation."
According to the article, the seven-member team from Amity Regional High School has spent more than "300 hours – mostly online – crafting and refining their arguments for the IPPF tournament."
"We get much more time to think about our arguments, and to plan, outline, review, revise, edit and have these in-depth discussions," member Sophia Liu said of written debates. "Whereas in an oral debate, it's very quick-paced because the speeches are one after another."
"A lot of the stuff that is covered in IPPF we don’t learn in school," Sophia Liu said. "I’ve never had an economics class or an international relations class. Learning how the United States relates to other nations is really interesting to me because I get to escape my bubble that I constantly live in."
To read the full article, click here.