News and Events // Debate Team Wins

UNDERDOG VALLEY DEBATE TEAM WINS
NATIONAL HISPANIC UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WIN STATE ETHICS BOWL, ADVANCE TO FINALS

By Joe Rodriguez, San Jose Mercury News (CA)

January 20, 2007
Section: Local
Edition: Morning Final

SAN JOSE - A debate team for National Hispanic University in East San Jose has scored an impressive David vs. Goliath victory by defeating the University of Southern California's business school for the state Ethics Bowl title and a place in the national final in February.

The Ethics Bowl competition asks teams of three to five students to offer moral and principled answers to ethical problems across a broad spectrum -- such as classroom plagiarism, human cloning, euthanasia and the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes.

NHU's ethics debate team was started in 2003 by five students who intended only to form a discussion study group on philosophical issues.

Xavier Flores, a founding member and the team's current captain, is typical of Latino students at the 600-student school.

Many come from immigrant or first-generation Spanish-speaking families with little money and less knowledge on how to get their children into four-year colleges. Three of the five team members debated in English -- their second language.

''It was difficult at the beginning,'' said Flores, a senior majoring in liberal studies. ''I was the one with the heaviest accent and the least amount of confidence. This was at a point in my life when English was becoming my daily language and it was nerve-racking.''

The other team members include senior Karina Avalos, sophomores Juan Ruiz and Craig Swencionis, and freshman Ana Castro. The team is coached by NHU Professor Michael Jordan.

''As a result of the preparation and the competition experience,'' said Jordan, ''their intellectual confidence has gone through the roof."

NHU competed in five previous regional Ethics Bowls before qualifying for the Dec. 2 state final in Chico. They defeated USC's Marshall School of Business and teams from University of California-Santa Cruz, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona and the California state universities at Chico and San Bernardino.

The team heads to Cincinnati for the national Ethics Bowl championship Feb. 22, and will go against much larger schools, including Indiana, DePaul, Washington and Clemson universities as well as the U.S. military academies at West Point and Annapolis.