The GDI Faculty and Staff
Glen Frappier, Gonzaga University
Glen has served as the Director of the GDI, and the Director of Forensics at Gonzaga University since 1999. In addition to his role with GU Debate, he serves on the faculty of the Department of Communication Studies. Under his direction GU Debate has qualified for the National Debate Tournament in 24 of the previous 25 years, and he is a previous recipient of the NDT’s prestigious Ziegemueller Award.
Avalyn Renee, Tufts University
Avalyn Renee is a PhD student at Tufts who was a competitive debater at Gonzaga University. Avalyn was also successful Lincoln-Douglas debater for Centennial High School, winning multiple speaker awards at national circuit tournaments and qualifying for the Tournament of Champions. She has continued that success at Gonzaga as a 4x qualifier to the National Debate Tournament, appearing in elim rounds and winning speaker awards throughout the season. She has extensive experience coaching high school, middle school, and elementary school debate and has taught at the GDI for the previous three years. She loves working with younger students to help them cultivate strong foundations that will enable them to further their competitive success as they grow into their debate careers.
Adrienne Brovero, University of Kentucky
Adrienne debated for Wake Forest in the 90s, winning multiple national tournaments and reaching the semi-finals of the National Debate Tournament twice. She and her partner were also awarded the prestigious Rex Copeland Award as the top-ranked team during the regular season. Since then, Adrienne has coached at Wake, Michigan, Northwestern, Richmond, the University of Mary Washington in Virginia and is now coaching at the University of Kentucky. In over 25 years of coaching, her teams have won nearly every tournament on the national circuit, including four National Debate Tournament championships and multiple American Debate Association National Championships. In 2020, Adrienne was ranked in the Top Ten Coaches of the Decade and was named the top Outstanding Judge of the Decade. Adrienne has taught at multiple debate institutes since 1992, including Wake, Michigan, Iowa, Northwestern, and Capitol Debate, and for the past decade, she has been excited to work with the great students each summer at the GDI.
Molly Martin, University of Pittsburgh
Molly Martin is a proud alum of Gonzaga debate and is currently a doctoral student in the Rhetoric program at the University of Pittsburgh. This will be their sixth year working at the GDI. As a competitor, they were a four-time National Debate Tournament qualifier, Lafayette Debates tournament champion, and CEDA octafinalist. As a coach, they worked with the Sacramento Urban Debate League in California and Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington. Having also attended the GDI as a high school debater, Molly is incredibly excited to continue working with the GDI Junior Varsity lab.
Martin Osborn, Wake Forest University
As a competitor for Missouri State University, Martin was awarded Top Speaker at the NDT and CEDA Nationals. Later, Martin received a masters degree at Wake Forest University while successfully coaching teams including a Kentucky round robin appearance, first-round bids, and multiple elimination appearances. Since then, he has worked with NDT programs at Kansas State and the University of North Texas. As a high school coach, Martin’s teams have made appearances in late elims at Montgomery Bell Academy, Emory, the Glenbrooks, and multiple TOCs. He is excited to spend this summer with Gonzaga and has done time at many of the country’s premier high school camps including Michigan, Michigan State, Berkeley, Stanford, Kansas, and UMKC.
Jason Regnier, Gonzaga University
Jason debated for the groundbreaking Fort Hays State team of the early 2000s that was among the early innovators of critical argumentation in policy debate. As a competitor he earned 3 first round at-large bids, was a quarterfinalist at the National Debate Tournament, and won the 2002 CEDA National Championship. Since graduating and earning his masters degree in communication, he has been coaching debaters to competitive success at the University of Iowa, Concordia College, the University of Michigan, and Gonzaga. Jason has taught at numerous institutes over the past two decades and is generally recognized as one of the best basketball players in the game today. Jason currently serves as the Assistant Director of Debate at Gonzaga University.
Patrick Waldinger, University of Miami
Patrick is currently the Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Miami. Prior to Miami, Patrick served as the Debate Coach at Boston College. Patrick received his M.A. in Communication at Wake Forest University, where he was a Graduate Assistant for the debate team. As a debater, Patrick won several tournaments including the American Debate Association (ADA) National Championship and was a two-time qualifier to the National Debate Tournament. Patrick is currently the Vice President of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) and the Vice President of the ADA. Patrick has a lot of experience teaching at debate institutes over the years, including the Capitol Classic, the Wake Forest Debate Workshop, Millennial Speech & Debate Institute, Spartan Debate Institute, Harvard Debate Council Summer Workshop, Hurricane Debate Institute & the Miami Dade Urban Debate League Summer Camp.