RKS 2026
Policy Sessions
Sunday June 28th-Saturday July 25th
We have options that range from 1 week to 4 weeks. All experience levels are welcome. Check out our policy sessions for more details. In-person overnight and online options available.
Public Forum Sessions
Sunday July 5th-Saturday July 18th
Come for 1 week or 2 weeks. This is ideal for those wanting to learn more about debate or hone their public forum skills. Check out our public forum sessions for more details. In-person overnight and commuter options available.
Self Empowerment through quality debate education
At Wake Forest, we take up this challenge to produce competitively successful, whole, and holistically-minded debaters in honor of our own experiences as educators and in honor of the legacies of Ross Kennedy Smith and Maya Angelou. Ross K. Smith, for whom the RKS Wake Workshop is named, was a legendary debate coach and speaker at Wake Forest for over thirty years. As the former director of the Wake Debate program and the summer workshop, Ross instilled a belief that the debate workshop is not summer “camp” but a place where really hard work is done in the name of becoming the best debater possible. The summer debate workshop was to be a place where both people and arguments grow. Ross’ legacy lives on in the many coaches, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, educators and other civil servants who emerged under his tutelage. Ross Kennedy Smith inspired a passion for policy debate in all its iterations. The way he lives on here is perhaps best encapsulated in the gratitude he offered to the debate community in a note titled “Thanks to our competitors,” where he said:
“Thank you competitors. Every one of you, coach and debater, who face our teams and push our teams to think harder, research deeper, get outside of our narrower confines. You pose questions to our coaching, without which questions we could not learn and improve.”
In his spirit, at the RKS students will learn how to develop argument – to critically read, think, analyze, compare and speak with one another and competitively against one another, in order to become the best in their craft.
Maya Angelou was an acclaimed poet and writer (best known for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), civil rights activist, and professor at Wake Forest University. In 2008 when discussing her role as an educator, Angelou said, “I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes. But I had to work at Wake Forest to know that.” She also said, “I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.” In her spirit, at the RKS we facilitate an environment in which students can practice what they preach. An environment in which we will practice excellence in argumentation, strategy, delivery, and an environment in which concepts come to life because we strive to apply them to life.
So, at the RKS you will do the work to make yourself the best you can be in what we are here--individually and collectively--doing. May the best argument win!
See how it works!
RKS
Ready to apply?
—
Meet the faculty!
