Public Forum at Wake Forest
Dates: Sunday July 13-July 20
Cost: $1450 if deposit paid by June 5. $1550 if after.
Talk, Learn, Read, Think, DO!!!!
We invite you to join us for a week of debate education through ACTION. Students will spend each day researching, thinking, asking, and most importantly DEBATING. This is not the place where lectures take hours and students are expected to simply take notes all day. Our sessions are ACTION PACKED. Our hope is to inspire passionate students to be better students, debaters, and leaders upon departure.
Learn on a College Campus with Small Groups
The students will be paired with PF instructors. This will expose students to what it is like to be in small, seminar style classrooms. With frequent breaks and intense student discussion, we hope to provide students with a little glimpse of what college life can be like.
Great Instruction
Learn from the dynamic duo of Zac Grant and Megan McCranie. Zac brings experience working with debate for over 4 decades at the highest levels of collegiate and high school success. His approach of making sure that arguments are not merely esoteric statements, but skills that can be used beyond the debate round means we look for the best arguments, not merely the tricks that can be easily spoiled. Megan brings a great degree of youthful energy being a recent high school graduate and current undergraduate at Furman University. It is hard to imagine getting a better set of instructors!
Speaking and Advocacy Skills
No matter one's path in life learning to make choices quickly and defending those choices is a valuable skill. Need to get a job, buy a car, determine which college to go to, figure out how to make money, no matter the task - better advocacy skills and speaking skills can help.
A History of Debate Success
Wake Forest Debate started in 1835. Edwin O. Wilson said "before we were writing or thinking, we at Wake Forest were arguing and speaking." With 3 Professors on campus who exclusively specialize in debate, Wake Forest is known around the country for not only it's educational programs in debate, but also competitive successes. In recent years, we have collected 3 National Debate Tournament Championships and 3 American Debate Association Championships.
A message from our lead faculty
Learning these fundamental arts, and how to apply them, is the raison d’etre for our PF Lab at RKS. PF allows students to debate a wide variety of current events, with resolutions centered around pressing national and global issues—such as climate policy, international relations, criminal justice, public health, new technologies, and economic development.
Thus, successful PF debaters develop a strong understanding of complex topics relevant to modern society.
Our PF Lab will prepare students to argue compellingly on the subject matter they are most likely to encounter in their competitive journey. Each student will leave Winston-Salem with a compete case, including relevant frontlines, on both sides of the presumptive resolution to be debated in September. Moreover, our approach will equip students to carry their success forward as they debate new resolutions on different subjects.
Because 2025 is the inaugural year for our PF Lab, enrollment will be limited to the first 16 students who apply, submit a deposit, and are accepted. Our staff is very adept at working with all levels of debaters, from raw beginners to aspiring national champions. We encourage students of all abilities and experience levels to apply and will separate into focused work groups for novice and advanced students, as necessary.
No matter your experience level, the up close, live, residential PF Lab at RKS is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to elevate your competitive debate trajectory in a way that will be difficult to achieve elsewhere or over the internet. We are eager to meet you and grow with you.
Public Forum Basics
Public Forum (PF) was introduced in 2002 by the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA). In 2025, PF is already the most popular interscholastic debate format in many parts of the US. Its ascendency reflects a shift toward inclusivity, audience accessibility, and the increasing relevance of real-world policy studies in youth education.
PF is designed to appeal to a broad audience. It aims to be understandable to lay judges—those without formal debate training. Even so, debaters trained in the fundamental arts of topic analysis, issue development, and persuasion science are far more effective at making their case to a lay audience than competitors who rely solely on their natural abilities and instincts.