at Bates, it began with the efforts of rhetoric professor and debate coach Brooks Quimby. It is ranked by the 2015 Princeton Review as the 12th best college radio station in the United States and Canada, making it the top college radio in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. A cappella There are five auditioned a cappella groups on campus. The Deansmen and the Manic Optimists are all-male, the Merminaders are all-female, and the co-ed groups are known as TakeNote and the Crosstones. Brooks Quimby Debate Council Arguably the most well-known student organization at Bates is the Brooks Quimby Debate Council, due to endowment allocation, relative participation rate, awards and historical significance. The formation of the team predates the establishment of the college itself as the debate society was founded within the Maine State Seminary making it the oldest coeducational college debate society in the United States. It was headed by Bates alumnus and teacher Brooks Quimby and became the first intercollegiate international debate team in the United States. The Quimby Debate Society has been noted as "America's most prestigious debating society," and the "playground of the powerful." During the 1930s, the debate society was subject to 'The Quimby Institute' which pitted each and every debate student against Brooks Quimby himself. This is where he began to engage heated debate with them that stressed "flawless assertions" and resulted in every error made by the student to be carefully scrutinized and teased. Bates has an annual and traditional debate with Oxford, Cambridge and Dartmouth College. It competes in the American Parliamentary Debate Association domestically, and competes in the World Universities Debating Championships, internationally. The debate council was ranked 5th nationally in 2013, the year prior year ranking 9th in the world. Traditions Ivy Day The class graduates participate in an Ivy Day which installs a granite placard onto one of the academic or residential buildings on campus. They serve as a symbol of the class and their respective history both academically and socially. Some classes donate to the college, in the form gates, facades, and door outlines, by inscribing or creating their own version of symbolic icons of the college's seal or other prominent insignia. This usually occurs on graduation day, but may occur on later dates with alumni returning to the campus. This tradition is shared with the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University. On Ivy Day, members of