Chris Medina: Using Education to Overcome Life's Obstacles

“I truly believe that I would be dead if I had not found speech and debate. In high school, I was doing a lot of bad things with a lot of bad people. It wasn’t until I found speech and debate that I actually thought I could even attend college. I never knew I was smart.”

Dr. Christopher Medina, PhD ’20, has by now dedicated more than 30 years to speech and debate. He is a lecturer and the director of forensics (aka, head speech and debate coach) at Prairie View A&M University, a HBCU (Historically Black College or University). He’s also the creator of the National HBCU Speech and Debate Association. When the Association began, five speech and debate teams participated. Now, approximately 30 teams are involved, and the hope is to keep expanding.

“Trying to rally support, educate others about speech and debate, and create a ground-breaking pedagogical program at a school with only 1,200 students while teaching and coaching was extremely exciting and demanding,” Medina said. “To overcome challenges like that in life, perseverance is essential, and resilience is indispensable.”

Medina founded the association after his years as head coach of The Great Debaters of Wiley College, another HBCU. In his seven-year tenure at Wiley, his students won more than 3,500 awards and honors, including more than 60 national championships. More importantly, they maintained a 97 percent graduation rate, 91 percent of them received a scholarship offer for graduate school, and 100 percent of the students who accepted their offers graduated from their respective graduate programs.

Also during his time at Wiley, Medina spent seven years designing the first debate across the curriculum program in higher education, which was a component of SACSCOC accreditation. As part of his dissertation for his doctoral program at Cumberlands, he performed the first statistical analysis on the critical thinking gains of the curriculum.

The results were satisfying. According to his findings, the program increased critical thinking in his students at approximately twice the rate of traditional matriculation. Additionally, the percentage of growth in his students’ critical thinking scores were the highest in the country.

“Anyone can overcome the obstacles in front of them through diligence, perseverance, and a village of support,” said Medina. “More importantly, you never know who can make a difference. I barely graduated high school because my grades were so bad. But I’ve been able to make a difference in students’ lives.”

Dr. Medina with the Great Debaters coaching staff of Wiley College.

Just before finishing his bachelor’s degree, Medina discovered he was dyslexic, which explained many of the challenges he’d faced in school. Years later, when his mother was about to pass away, she made Medina promise to finish his education – as in, completely finish: earn a doctorate. Cumberlands offered the most affordable doctoral program Medina could find, and it was flexible enough for his packed schedule. He finished the home stretch of the program during the COVID-19 pandemic while simultaneously teaching a full load, coaching two HBCU National Champions, and running his nonprofit organization. In his words, it was one of the most challenging years of his life.

Regardless, he is grateful for the ways the experience helped shape his character. Challenges have been a consistent theme in his life. But he has learned to avoid, persist through, or rebound from whatever obstacles impede his path. It’s a trait he will carry with him forever.