Fulton Debating Society of Boston College

From the inception of Boston College, elocution and oratory skill were among the most important assets that the school actively cultivated in its students. Boston College was founded in 1863 and Dean Father Robert Fulton, S.J., established a debating society in 1868. In the early years, interested students gathered to argue the issues of the day. According to the minutes from these meetings, the first topic debated was "Is the art of printing productive of more good than evil?". Over time, the debating society grew and prospered and, in 1890, the students voted to name their society in honor of Father Fulton. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Fultonians engaged in public debates with regional rivals (such as Harvard and Holy Cross) and traveling teams (from Oxford and Cambridge). After World War II, intercollegiate debate changed with a new emphasis on tournament debating. Instead of a single debate between two colleges, a host school would invite teams from a number of colleges to engage in a series of round-robin debates over two or three days. At the end of the tournament, one team was declared the champion. Beginning in the mid 1950s, the Fulton Debating Society began to travel to tournaments involving teams from colleges in New England. By the early 1960s, the Fultonians were traveling to tournaments across the country and regularly qualifying to attend the prestigious National Debate Tournament. Boston College first qualified to attend the NDT in 1962 and has been represented at the tournament by thirty-eight teams over the decades that followed.

Website

https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/mcas/sites/fulton-debate-society.html

External link for Fulton Debating Society of Boston College

Industry

Sports Teams and Clubs

Company size

2-10 employees

Headquarters

Chestnut Hill, MA

Type

Nonprofit