Our First Legacy/Platinum Sponsor, Howard Payne University

We're excited to once again partner with Howard Payne University—with up to 36 scholarships each semester!

In 2020, Ziggy Online Debate® started partnering with universities and colleges, apprenticeship programs, and debate organizations to offer students competing in our one-time tournaments scholarship opportunities. Since early 2020, we have given away nearly three million dollars in scholarships to our students.

Now, we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that we are going to be partnering with more groups for our biggest events: our Semester Tournaments. Each Semester Tournament takes place during the entirety of the Fall and Spring semesters, and we’ve averaged over 300 competitors each year through those events alone.

Our First Sponsor: Howard Payne University

Howard Payne University (to date, our most generous sponsor) has once again agreed to partner with us, and will be our first ever sponsor for the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 Semester Tournaments! Specifically, HPU is once again offering $60,000 Dean Scholarships for all 1st and 2nd place debate teams, and $56,000 Yellow Jacket Scholarships for all 3rd and 4th place teams. (Each event must meet our minimum number of signups for that event to start.)

This amounts to up to 36 scholarships from HPU in the Fall and up to 44 scholarships in the Spring!

Howard Payne University will be Ziggy’s first “Legacy/Platinum” sponsor as a generous donor of substantial amounts of scholarships for Ziggy students. HPU President Dr. Cory Hines said the following about our sponsorship:

“As a Christian university, Howard Payne is committed to producing graduates who are prepared to navigate and lead in a complex world where diverse points of view are a constant. Over 17,000 of such graduates, including Ziggy Online Debate founder and director, Isaac Sommers, have earned Howard Payne University degrees since its founding in 1889. Ziggy Online Debate’s mission and vision align well with HPU’s longstanding commitment to fostering an atmosphere of open debate and inquiry, a foundational characteristic of higher education. Not only are we immensely proud to call Isaac Sommers a graduate of Howard Payne University, we are also proud to partner with Ziggy Online Debate to support the numerous virtual debate events hosted annually.”

I (Isaac Sommers) loved my time at Howard Payne and would be more than happy to talk with any prospective students about my experience there. And I’m excited to be working once again with my alma mater to offer dozens of Ziggy Online Debate® students each semester for this upcoming debate year.

Stay tuned for other exciting updates in the coming weeks and months! Registration is OPEN for Ziggy Online Debate’s Fall 2022 Semester Tournament at ziggyonlinedebate.com!