The director of the program and head coach is Ken Strange. He has several assistant coaches, who are usually former successful debaters who are taking a year off before going to graduate or professional school. The coaches have no teaching responsibilities during the debate season, so they are fully available to the debaters for practice, discussion, and assistance. A full commitment to successful debating requires a lot of time, but even those who are most devoted are quite capable of doing well in classes. Evidence of this is that Dartmouth Debate has a long tradition of its hardest-working and most successful debaters graduating with honors and going on to attend the nation's best law and graduate schools.
Classes always come first for the debaters.
Debate work and travel are adjusted to academic schedules. If there are doubts whether a debater can perform well in both competition and the classroom, they should try debating. Since classes come first, their academic performance should never suffer and they will benefit from whatever level of commitment they are able to make to debate. The DFU is not involved in Lincoln-Douglas style debating or in individual events competition, but there are other programs on campus, like the Parliamentary Debate program, that can satisfy those interests.