Nothing prepared me more for my current position as a tenured full professor and Director of the Environmental Humanities program at U of Utah than my time in Oregon Forensics. I learned to write, research, make well supported arguments, and speak well from participation on the debate team. I would have never pursued graduate school without the encouragement of my coaches and would have never succeeded in obtaining my master’s degree and PhD without the writing, research, and argumentation skills I learned from debate. This activity is not just a student club, it is form of pedagogy focused on building critical thinking, dialogue, and debate skills that are at the core of the mission of higher education.