PANTHER PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2026

Hello, and thank you for your interest in attending the Panther Parliamentary Debates at FIU.

Panther Speech and Debate is excited to be hosting our first collegiate tournament and even more excited to offer another opportunity for competition in Miami. This tournament is exclusively in the British Parliamentary Debate format. If you are unfamiliar with this format, a good video explaining it can be found here. (https://youtu.be/Kgvx7Z7dR9U?si=xgng5SWVxE8ZAzIu)

Below is necessary information for your registration and attendance.

Tournament Structure, Awards, & Schedule

The tournament will be conducted with four initial rounds and a final round between the top four teams. These four will be determined by rankings in the first four rounds, with speaker points being used for tie breakers. In the case of a tie in both rankings and speaker points, the advancing team will be determined by a coin flip witnessed by both teams. 

Following the BPD format, topics will be announced alongside pairings, 15 minutes before the round.

There will not be separate divisions or awards for novice competitors, however there may be awards for high speaker points, awarded to individual competitors instead of the team itself.

Awards will be given to 3 finalists, and of course an award will be given to the winner of the tournament as well.

Schedule:

Registration    (DM 100)        7 AM - 8:30 AM

Round 1 Topic Drop               8:45 AM

Round 1                                  9 AM - 10:30 AM

Round 2 Topic Drop              10:45 AM

Round 2                                 11 AM - 12:30 PM

Lunch                                    12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Round 3 Topic Drop             1:45 PM

Round 3                                2 PM - 3:30 PM

Round 4 Topic Drop             3:45 PM

Round 4                                4 PM - 5:30 PM

Finalist Revealed                  6 PM     

Finals Topic Drop                 6:15 PM           

Finals                                    6:30 PM - 8 PM

Awards                                  8:30 PM             

Logistics and Registration Requirements

Judges

Every competing organization is required to bring at least 1 judge. 

1 judge will be able to cover 2 teams.

An organization with 1 team must bring 1 Judge, 2 teams must bring 1, 3 teams 2, 5 teams 3 and so on.

We won’t be issuing fees for missing judges, but if we are short of judges we may have to limit rounds, which could lead to bye-rounds (counted as a 3rd or 4th for the competitor sitting out) which will primarily fall on  the lowest performers in the organizations with missing judges.

This is only a worst case scenario, and FIU plans on providing a small number of judges in order to avoid it.

We recommend you provide your judges with information on judging BP & understanding the format. The video above is a good start, and there will be a brief explanation on what we want judges to take into account before rounds begin.

Location 

The tournament is being hosted in the Honors College at FIU (Deuxieme Maison, 11200 SW 8th St.)

Registration, Room announcements, and topic drops will occur in DM 100,

We recommend parking in the Gold & Blue Garages (Gold being the better of the two) 

For any physically disabled competitors, there are accessible parking spots directly behind the building by the entrance to SIPA 1, off of SW 14th St.

Building looks like this 

Light lunch may be provided, but there are food options on campus if need be.

Registration will be located in DM 100, this is also where topics will be dropped and awards will be held.

Contact Information

For any questions or concern feel free to contact the following people

August Osani (Outreach & New Membership) - 321 370 5968 - osaniaugust@gmail.com 

Shilat Jayo-Acuna (President) - 786 804 0232 - sjayo001@fiu.edu