Adam Key

"What I Learned in Prison"

Adam Key is a Ph.D. student in the Texas A&M Department of Communication and the Speech Instructor and Debate Coach at Lee College - Huntsville Center, the oldest and largest prison college program in Texas. Since 2011, he was been teaching speech classes to inmates at six different prisons throughout east Texas as they work to earn their Associate's degrees while incarcerated. His research has been featured at state, regional, national, and international conferences. Key is also a career debate coach, having coached students to national and international rankings at both the college and high school level over the past nine years. Key is a 4-time national champion debater and in 2012 became the youngest recipient of the International Public Debate Association's Coach of the Year award. In 2016, he began a debate program at the historic Walls Unit in Huntsville, TX that defeated Texas A&M's speech and debate team at an exhibition in October.