The Honorary Debate Panel (HDP) sponsors and promotes prize debates at Princeton University. Incumbent to this purpose is the goal of not only rewarding but fostering top-caliber debate at Princeton. The HDP is not merely a mechanism for conducting prize debates but also an organization dedicated to promoting prize-worthy debating, replete with finely honed rhetoric, oratory, and argumentation. Annually-held debates and oratory contests include the Lynde Prize Debate, the Class of 1876 Memorial Prize for Debate in Politics, the Maclean Prize and Junior Orator Awards, the Walter E. Hope Prizes in Speaking and Debating, the Spencer Trask Medals for Debating, and the William Rusher ’44 Prize in Debating.

Information about each debate will be distributed to Whig-Clio members before try-outs are held. Debates open to non-members are advertised in the Daily Princetonian and through signs on campus. All final debates are public.