Newark Debate Academy Employee Directory

Founded in 2001, The Newark Debate Academy (formerly the Jersey Urban Debate League) started as a Newark high school debate league and has evolved into a grammar school-to-collegiate debate program. The Newark Debate Academy (NDA) established and nurtures academic debate and speech programs in Newark Public Schools and Rutgers Newark serving over 5... 00 students annually. NDA programming includes a public debate series, classroom debate as a literacy instructional tool as well as hosting 12 competitive tournaments. Both the Newark Invitational for high school debaters and the Rutgers Collegiate Invitational are major regional events drawing participants from throughout the Northeast and sometimes from as far as Florida, Texas and California. Teams supported by NDA have won three national high school and collegiate championships. In May 2014 NDA hosted a formal public policy debate in which the two candidates for Newark mayor reacted to questions posed by high school debaters. Rutgers Newark's collegiate national champion, Elijah Smith moderated the debate.Read More