Matt Liu, Director of the UW Forensics, wants to promote informed dialogue and discussion through extracurricular debate.
“Informed citizenry is the bedrock of democracy and dialogue and deliberation are skills that need to be learned and practiced,” Liu said. “Debate is the training ground to do that.”
Liu received an undergrad degree in Communication from Liberty University and a Master’s from Wake Forest. Before coming to Wyoming, he was working at the University of Minnesota to receive his PhD.
“I actually worked at the Wyoming Forensics Institution in probably about 2010. One of the reasons I applied for this job was the wonderful experience I had being hosted by previous director Travis Cram,” Liu said.
As soon as Liu was hired, he sought to help UW Debate grow.
“There’s not much in my past that would suggest I would be doing this. It is my competitive drive that landed me in this position,” Liu said.
“Number one and number two objectives are always expanding the team and expanding its competitive success,” Liu said. “Working towards a team that has more members and more success over the year is our overriding goal.”
“In service of that goal and in service of creating a model that allows the university to extend good outwards to the community, we’ve done a number of community facing projects to increase access to debate,” Liu said.
Liu brought attention to Team Wyoming first. A project that offers supplementary debate coaching to the State High schools as well as regional neighbors entirely for free. Utilizing the help of UW debaters and coaches.
Liu also stated that the university will be hosting a high school tournament for 14 of the best Policy Debate teams across the Mountain West which includes states like Colorado, Nebraska, Montana, the Dakotas, Utah, and of course, Wyoming.
“Our hope is to use this tournament to grow debate across the Greater Mountain West Region,” Liu explained.
Liu went on to explain why students should be interested in extracurricular debate programs.
“The big pitch is critical thinking skills,” Liu said. “The types of debate we do are excellent at ensuring that people are able to assess ideas and respond to them. Not with demagoguery or emotions, but with facts, research, and clear cool assessments.”
“The National Speech and Debate Association used to run an ad that said the best argument for debate is to read the comment section on any article on the internet,” Liu said.
Liu really wants both college and high school students to recognize that the best to achieve positive dialogue and meaningful conversations, is through the lens of debate.
Team Wyoming and Liu’s other programs like the Wyoming Forensics Institute are unique in their attempts to bring debate to the region.
“Team Wyoming was inspired by a private debate coaching organization,” Liu said. “There are private companies that charge students thousands of dollars a semester to receive coaching.”
“Those companies have been very good at expanding access to debate. But they’ve only been good at expanding access to students at private schools who can afford their exuberant fees.”
Team Wyoming and its sister programs are entirely free for students to access due to the work of many UW students and coaches.
Liu has also brought a speech and debate program to Wyoming Virtual Academy which had no program before. This program is entirely headed by UW students and staff.
Beyond these programs, Liu works as an assistant lecturer for the Department of Communication and Journalism as well as the Honors College.
He teaches persuasive argumentation courses as well as higher level classes examining the rhetoric of political and social movements. Liu mentioned this material connects to many social movements such as the Civil Rights movement and Suffrage in the past, to the Black Lives Matter movement of today.
In the future, Liu said he wants to expand the success of the university’s programs both in terms of how many students participate and how successful they are.
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