Updated 3/25/22

TLDR; I believe that true tab judges don't exist, but I will listen to any argument and evaluate it within the context of the round. I debated policy and public forum in high school and did NPDA in college.

I competed in debate throughout middle school, high school, and college for a combined total of 8 years of competitive experience. I graduated from a small high school program where I primarily competed in policy and national circuit PF, including the TOC. In college, I competed in NPDA at California Lutheran University. I have done every style of debate at some point, so I am familiar with and ready to listen to anything. For my first year and a half of debate, I was relatively traditional (think politics DA every round), but I became increasingly progressive as my career progressed (i.e. I ran critical race theory on the PF circuit).

Kritiks: I'm familiar with the literature base of most and can comprehend anything. Structure is very important to me here because it is very easy to get bogged down in a poorly structured K debate. If you're reading something kritikal, please explain your K whether I know it or not. If you can't explain your K, I'm probably not going to be super compelled by it. I am a firm believer that debate should be accessible to everyone, which means that your poorly articulated BwO arguments will lose to me every time (especially if you can't answer questions about it). All that being said, I was the kid that read genealogical interrogations in PF, so I will be happy with just about anything.

CPs: AFF has to read a perm. It takes less time to say "perm: do both" than it will take your opponent to respond no matter their WPM. CPs should have solvency to be compelling.

Theory: I love a good theory debate, but make sure you have all parts of a shell and give me reasons why the T matters. If you're answering theory, I prefer line by line down the shell than a blanket response. I don't think RVIs are the best strategy against theory, but I am willing to listen to and vote on them if the teams feel it is necessary.

DAs: Before reading the DA you are considering, ask yourself "does this make sense?" If the answer is no, try again. As long as you can articulate uniqueness, links, internals, and impacts, the DA should make sense. I have heard and voted on some out there DAs, but my threshold for explanation remains high here.

Speaker Points: I think they are useless and generally exclusionary, but I will assign them as the tournament requires. 30 speaks theory takes 10 seconds... do with that what you will.

Everything else: Give me solid impacts and tell me why you're winning. Good impact calc is the fastest path to my ballot. I am fine with any speed and can flow whatever. I recognize that CX is binding, but I don't flow it, so say it in a speech if you want it on my flow.

My general philosophy is that debate should be accessible and equitable. That means a couple of things that could help or hurt you. For one, I am receptive to arguments with an impact in the debate space. It also means I am sensitive to things like gendered language, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. I believe that you should not run an argument that you are not passionate about, and likewise that if you are passionate about something that you should run it no matter how strong your coach thinks it is.

If you have questions, please ask in round!

If I judged you and you have more questions for me that you didn't get to ask in round, email me at kdhenin@callutheran.edu. I will do my best to get back to you before your next tournament with anything that might help you, and I am happy to send you my flows if you think they will be helpful to you.