Debate manager Jadon Buzzard (left) and PHC professor Christian Fernandez (right) will be assuming leadership of Ethos Debate.
This summer, Ethos Debate is undergoing some change! I (Thaddeus) have led Ethos for the past 3 years, and just became a father recently. Ethos is shifting leadership, and we wanted to keep everyone informed.
Christian Fernandez and Jadon Buzzard will be taking up the lead on Ethos for the foreseeable future. I will step back and focus on coaching and helping them transition over. Soon after this post, Christian and Jadon will be posting to introduce themselves, but rest assured, Ethos is in good hands.
Over the past few years, Ethos has downsized. We were all mainly part-time, and limited energy kept us from branching out into all the amazing directions we wanted too. That will soon change. Look for some really radical and cool programs coming your way soon.
What was important to me was that Ethos always had leadership that was rooted in two things: 1) the conjunction of the Trivium with modern communication and 2) a coaching-oriented approach to serving the debate community.
What I wanted to stay away from – from a competition oriented approach to coaching debate. Too many times, debate students with massive talent are ruined, because their coach focuses on the next competition and case-prep, rather than the systematic teaching of skills that will win ANY debate. Don’t get me wrong, we love case-prep here, and Ethos has a long legacy of some of the best sourcebook work around.
In the past three years, we ran dozens of camps, coached over 1,000 students in 4 leagues, across 11 styles of debate. We coached college students in Hong-kong, and even were privileged to be a part of the team effort that took the 2019 Worlds Schools debate national title in NSDA. With that all behind us, It is time to open a new chapter: let me introduce to you our two new leaders.
Not to spoil the reveal too much, but Christian Fernandez is an adjunct professor at PHC in the rhetoric and recitation classes. I debated with and against him while I was attending PHC, and I can vouch for his dedication to the practice of classic liberal arts. He has acute business acumen, and has been a part of of one of the most successful collegiate debate programs in the nation (PHC) for a long time. He knows how to help debaters succeed.
Jadon, while still relatively new to Ethos has impressed me multiple times. He not only is an absolute master of debate theory (seriously), but he shows a real affinity to helping students level up, succeed, win, and understand the WHY behind simple debate concepts that usually go unexplained in today’s modern debate environment. He brings a robust collegiate (and administrative) competitive experience with him.
Ethos exists to prove that modern communication and debate is really just the practice of critical thinking and persuasion. This daunting task can get bogged down in strategies for winning, easily modeled formulas, and psychology to influence the judge. While these are all helpful, they don’t help the student become a better communicator after debate league ends and life begins. Ethos exists to bridge that gap. Something our competitors clearly don’t do.
If you doubt our model: look at the unparalleled results. We’ve been pumping out debate champions for close to 15 years now.
Great things are coming to Ethos. Stay tuned.
For a more comprehensive breakdown of our model and philosophy, see this
Regards,
- Thaddeus Tague