MCC-Longview students head to National Debate Tournament

Two MCC-Longview students packed up and headed east this week as they plan to compete in the Phi Rho Pi National Debate Tournament in Greenwich, Conn.

Natalie Reeves and Jonathon Stacy will compete against some of the greatest debaters from community colleges from around the country.

"We are proud of our students and excited they will get this opportunity to debate this week," MCC-Longview debate coach Kris Stroup said.

The pair will debate all this week. For updates from the tournament, be sure to check here or over on the MCC-Longview Facebook page.

MCC-Longview Debate brings home first place at Kansas Wesleyan tournament, Feb. 4-6

Opening the 2011 debate season, MCC-Longview took home the top prize in the Kansas Wesleyan debate tournament’s community college division on Feb. 4-6.

Overall, Longview brought home fourth place at the tournament beating out many four-year universities and colleges.

Debaters from MCC-Longview crisscrossed the state this past month competing in two tournaments and brining home victories in several different categories.

On Jan. 28-30, MCC-Longview debaters headed to Webster University in St. Louis, one of the largest tournaments of the season and faced arguments from some of the toughest debate teams from around the region.

Debaters Natalie Reeves and Jonathan Stacy partnered to compete in Parliamentary Debate for the first time. Coach Kris Stroup said that although the team did not advance to the elimination rounds of the Webster tournament, the outing there gave both debaters a lot of experience collaborating with debaters from Truman State University as they prepare for the national tournament in April.

“We used this tournament as an opportunity to put our nationals team in place so that we could start playing with new strategies,” Stroup said.

MCC-Longview welcomes new faculty

It was cause for celebration and anticipation of the new school year as MCC-Longview welcomed six new faculty members to campus on Friday for a luncheon with senior faculty and administration.

Dr. Fred Grogan welcomed each of the new faculty members at the luncheon that also paired the new instructors with veteran instructors that will help guide them through the orientation process, which is part of Longview's First Learning Year Team program.

We got the chance to catch up with two of our new faculty members briefly:

Name: Kris Stroup
Teaching: Speech and Debate
Formerly: Instructor at Truman State University
Bio:Kris is a long-time debater who debated in college for Truman State University. He then took a teaching position there and taught debate for five years.

"I am really looking forward to working with such a different student body and look forward to helping really grow this program."

Name: Nicole Pflum
Teaching: Engineering
Formerly: Cerner
Bio: Nicole brings a rich background with a mix of real-world experience and teaching. Before coming to Longview, Nicole worked with Cerner, Sprint and was a teacher in the Raymore-Peculiar school district.

Nicole is also a former student at Longview where she took engineering before transferring to University of Missouri-Rolla.

"I am really looking forward to being able to have the same kind influence on students that my teachers here had on me."

Along with Stroup and Pflum, four other new faculty members will begin classes next week.