Brooks Quimby Debate Council

The Brooks Quimby Debate Council is the debating society at Bates College, founded just after the College in 1855.

Among many firsts, we participated in the first intercollegiate debate in 1896 and the first international collegiate debate in 1908. Today, as one of the world’s premier debating societies, we compete domestically against other teams in the American Parliamentary Debate Association, and participate in a number of international debating events, such as the World Universities Debating Championships. Committed to inclusivity, we always welcome new debaters to our program – many of our best debaters learned how to debate at Bates!

Please explore our website to learn more about our program, or feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the BQDC or debate in general – we’d love to hear from you!

We meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 4:10pm in Pettigrew Hall (Room 300).

A group of people stand and sit together in front of the Dairy Joy shop eating or holding ice cream.

After a very successful season last year, the BQDC is happy to see many new novices interested in the team and debating at Bates, and we are excited to see where the new season may lead us, and how the team continues to grow. We sure have many exciting tournaments coming up: Oxford IV, Panama WUDC and many tournaments in New England. 


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