From a young age, Karlyn was meant to be a debater.
“In middle school I argued with my teachers all the time,” Karlyn explains. “It got to the point where a teacher went up to the debate coach and said ‘You’ve got to do something about her!’”
“God, I was such a bad student.”
Since then, Karlyn, a second year student from Pennsylvania, has competed around the country in regional and national tournaments. Her debate experiences in high school have perfected her communication abilities, sharpened her presentation skills, and, most of all, taught her how to logically analyze every situation.
It’s those skills that Karlyn wants to share with students in the South Side. Last year, Karlyn sat down with a group of UChicago students to plan out how to bring debate back to Chicago. Despite Chicago being a big city, the number of high school debate programs has dwindled over the years and recent budget cuts crunched the number down to 56. Many operate without sufficient funds to make their teams competitive. This, according to Karlyn, is a disadvantage to high school students as they miss out on developing practical skills that will help them later on in school and careers.
The result of their concern was Rising Phoenix, a new RSO dedicated to coaching debate in Chicago’s South Side. As Vice President, Karlyn spends every Saturday from 9am to noon coaching South Side students on UChicago campus, teaching them the tools of the trade. Her goal is to pass on the same skills that helped her succeed so that other students can widen their opportunities.
“Debate opens up so many doors for anyone who sticks with it,” Karlyn says. “You get the skills you need to ace job and college interviews, come up with innovative ideas, persuade people…There’s just so many more chances for you to help yourself.”
For the students who attend Rising Phoenix’s workshops, those opportunities are especially sought after. The RSO currently has a solid relationship with 2 South Side schools: Thomas Kelly High School in southwest Chicago, and Farragut Career Academy. Their workshop attendees are minority students from lower-income neighbourhoods who seek an extra challenge outside of school, with some commuting for as long as 45 minutes every Saturday morning to UChicago’s campus.
Though the RSO is still in its beginning stages, both coaches and high school pupils are revelling in the experience. “The kids make everything worth it,” Karlyn beams. “It doesn’t matter if they complain once in a while about the amount of work they have to do because they have this fierce competitive spirit that brings them back.”
Inspired by their current successes, Karlyn is working with her co-board members to extend an end-of-summer minicamp (Rising Phoenix had their first minicamp in August) into a three-day program open to all schools. For the academic year, the RSO’s members are hoping not only to extend their reach to other schools, but to finalize transportation plans so that the students won’t need to travel to UChicago. Driven by her love for debate, Karlyn hopes that both initiatives will revive what is becoming an increasingly lost art in Chicago.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Chicago chapter.