About CEDA

About CEDA

Who We Are

Founded in 1971 as the Southwest Cross Examination Debate Association, CEDA is now the primary national association promoting policy topic intercollegiate academic debate. In cooperation with the National Debate Tournament Committee and the American Debate Association, CEDA formulates the annual intercollegiate policy debate topic used in tournament competition throughout the nation.

CEDA acts as a tournament sanctioning agent, providing through its Constitution and By-Laws a framework for normalizing tournament practices and procedures. Throughout the tournament season, CEDA calculates the National Sweepstakes Standings, the national and regional rankings of member institutions based on compiled tournament results.
The association also hosts an annual National Championship Tournament that brings together over 200 individual debate teams from across the nation to compete for a national team championship.

One of CEDA’s most important functions is to serve as a professional association for scholars and teachers in the field of applied argumentation and debate. In addition to sponsoring scholarly programs on issues of interest to association members at the annual convention of the National Communication Association, CEDA has organized two indigenous scholarly assessment conferences: The 1991 St. Paul 20th Anniversary Assessment Conference, and the 2001 Tahoe Conference on Academic Debate. CEDA also publishes Contemporary Argumentation and Debate: The Journal of the Cross Examination Debate Association, a refereed scholarly journal that serves as the primary outlet for monographs and essays addressing issues related to the theory and practice of academic debate.

CEDA NATIONAL TOURNAMENT

The 2025 CEDA Nationals tournament will be hosted by Rutgers University – Newark. Competition will feature eight preliminary rounds, followed by a varsity elimination bracket that clears the top half of competition and a novice break-out elimination bracket including the top eight performing novice teams. Join us at the Rutgers Newark campus for the 2025 season CEDA Nationals tournament!

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CEDA Info

About CEDA, Membership information, CEDA National Tournament

CEDA Nationals

Information on the upcoming and past CEDA National Tournaments

Contact

Press Inquiries, Membership Inquiries, Questions and information

History

CEDA
TOPIC ARCHIVE

Click the button below to view past archives

CEDA NATIONAL
TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS

Click the button below to view our champion list

Officers

CEDA National & Regional Executive Committee

Have questions? Feel free to reach out by clicking the button below and a member of our team will get back to you in the next 24 – 48 hours to answer any questions you might have.

CEDA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

President
Devane Murphey, University of Kentucky
1st Vice President
Phil Samuels, Wichita State University
2nd President
Deven Cooper, California State University - Long Beach

Treasurer
Joe Patrice, Army

Executive Secretary
Jackie Poapst, George Mason University

CEDA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Immediate Past President
Brendon Bankey, University of Texas-Austin

Past President
Jackie Poapst, George Mason University

Recording Secretary
Rebecca Steiner, Emory University

East Central
Carly Watson, Michigan State University

Southeast Region
Mikaela Malsin, Emory

Mid America Region
Eric Morris, Missouri State University

West Region
Matt Liu, Wyoming

Mid Atlantic Region
Danielle Verney-O’Gorman, United States Naval Academy

Northeast Region
Katherine Rubino, US Military Academy

North Central Region
David Cram Helwich, University of Minnesota

Pacific Region
Deven Cooper, UC-Long Beach

South Central Region
Rob Glass, University of Houston

CEDA constitution

We are the leading debate association

Click the button below to view the Cross Examination Debate Association Constitution and By-Laws.

Memberships

Interested in joining CEDA?
Let's make a better future.