A Few Highlights from the Annual Newsletter |
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Spring 2006 Volume 3.1
Looking Back To Look ForwardBy: Sam Nelson It was way back in 1984 that I first met Pam Stepp, then the Director of Forensics at Cornell. I had just graduated from the University of Southern California and had moved to Ithaca to be near my girlfriend, Veronica Guiry, who was studying nutrition in the College of Human Ecology. I had attended USC on a debate scholarship and I thought that I could find employment doing something with debate at Cornell. I took the rickety elevator in the back of the old Mann Library, walked past the ancient sign that read "Department of Freehand Drawing," and met Pam in her small and funky office. That meeting led to me being hired as an assistant coach for the forensics team. It was the beginning of my teaching and coaching career that has spanned more than two decades and jobs at half a dozen colleges and universities. Looking back, I know that was the time that I was introduced to the principles that would be the basis of my educational and forensics coaching philosophy that today form the foundation of my vision for the Cornell Forensics Society. These are the five main principles: 1) Cornell Forensics should be fun. Busy Cornell students sacrifice a lot to excel in speech and debate. The trips and tournaments can be nasty, brutish and long. Unlike many of our competitors, no one competes for Cornell because they are receiving a scholarship. Our modest budget allows us to travel in the finest Econovans that the New York State fleet garage has to offer and stay in hotels that may have at one time passed a state health inspection. Despite all these obstacles, students are motivated to be a part of the Cornell Forensics Society because of the excitement of tournament competition, the camaraderie they share, and the close friendships they will cherish all their lives. 2) Cornell Forensics should be diverse. The squad has always had a history of seeing diversity as one of our key strengths. This includes diversity of experience, skill level, race, ethnic background, gender, religion, and a host of other areas. Cornell Forensics needs to continue to be a leader in this area. 3) Cornell Forensics should be educational. The communication skills one hones as a member of the Cornell Forensics Society should last a lifetime. Countless former members of the Cornell Forensics Society prove that these communication skills are important attributes in achieving success in a range of activities. Former Cornell Forensics Society members use the skills they developed while competing a Cornell everyday as community organizers, business leaders, parents, scientists, lawyers, doctors and an endless list of impressive endeavors. 4) Cornell Forensics should be financially stable. Things are not getting any cheaper. Students at a great university like Cornell should not have to worry whether the team will be able to afford to send them to compete at the national tournaments they work so hard to qualify for. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Department of Communication as well as many alumni and parents have made the team financially viable for the foreseeable future but more needs to be done to assure that the Cornell Forensics Society will continue to thrive. Help from the College of Human Ecology has been very much appreciated. A fund raising campaign is in the midst of being planned. 5) Cornell Forensics should be competitively successful. Many good things come from winning. Winning is not the only thing, but it sure helps. My goal is for the Cornell Forensics Society to compete and win at all levels of speech and debate. It is important to be good sports when we are defeated. It is better to be gracious winners! In 2006, I am fortunate to be supported in my vision for Cornell Forensics by Susan Henry, the Dean of CALS and Geri Gay, the Chair of the Department of Communication as well as from a number of my colleagues in the Department of Communication. Pam Stepp, has replaced her funky Mann library office with a spectacular new office in the School of Industrial Labor Relations where she now serves as the Managing Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. She has been extremely supportive of my recent move to Cornell and my vision for the future of the Cornell Forensics Society. Many alums have also expressed their support. Much has been done since I first became associated with the Cornell Forensics Society over twenty years ago. I am happy to be back at Cornell. Together, we can accomplish much more and ensure our strong tradition endures. 2005 - 2006 College Debate TopicResolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the People's Republic of China in one or more of the following areas: trade, human rights, weapons nonproliferation, Taiwan. Varsity Debate - Staying StrongBy: Michael Kesselman Rebuilding is the team mantra this year, and with the addition of high-demand coaches such as Sam Nelson, Paul Leader, and James Thomas, the debate team seeked to do just that. This year, the varsity team went through numerous coaching changes with Michael Morosi and Paul Leader for the Fall 2005 semester and the replacement of Michael with James Thomas in the Spring 2006 semester. Overall, it was a year of modest successes, with a strong local showing and a national showing that boasted a team that was not willing to give up. Freshman Michael Kesselman (ILR '09) and sophomores Vinay Prabhu (CALS '08) and Mikhail Kats (ENGR '08) each started the year successfully at the junior varsity level, all making the jump to varsity by November. Seniors Craig Murray (ENGR '06), Judy Lai (ILR '06), and Sherin Varghese (CALS '06), juniors Jeron Jackson (A&S '07) and Jeff Terkowitz (A&S '07) as well as sophomore Candice Williams (A&S '08) all provided invaluable veteran leadership for the team, often performing to set a positive example for the younger varsity, junior varsity, and novice members. Cornell debate took home its share of hardware this year, with Sherin claiming 1st speaker at Umass, Vinay getting 2nd at Umass, and Craig getting 3rd at Binghamton. Cornell also had teams break at nearly every local tournament we went to. Nationally, the team had its share of ups and downs, with no formal successes. However, Cornell was often close with many teams one win away from breaking at tournaments such as Cap Cities and CEDA Nationals and a very close run at qualifying for the National Debate Tournament (NDT). Since this year served as a successful rebuilding year, our eyes now turn towards the future. With 6 returning varsity members for next season, Cornell debate hopes to finally obtain the competitive success experienced in years past. Emphasizing argumentative development and organization, we hope to mold ourselves into the successful team Cornell once was, giving all others a run for their money. A Brighter Future?James Thomas This year, the Cornell Debate team was fortunate enough to have James Thomas join us as the new assistant debate coach. James traveled to Cornell hailing all the way from the University of West Georgia, where he debated until 2005. He had immense success as a competitor, qualifying for the National Debate Tournament (NDT) all 4 years of his career and earning a first-round bid as a senior. Furthermore, James has reached the elimination rounds all 4 years of college with octafinal finishes in 2004 and 2005. James has brought with him a new standard for competitive success and dedication to the activity. We look forward to continuing to work with James for the upcoming year. Special Thanks...Cornell would like to send a special thanks to Paul Leader, our assistant debate coach, for all his hard work throughout this past year and for putting up with our special requests to use the printer at all the tournaments. We'd also like to thanks Paul for being such a great novice coach. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. Another special thanks to Michael Morosi for helping the team during the fall 2005 semester, a time when the team was in dire need of an assistant coach. Michael stepped into the position and contributed to a successful fall semester. More Than Just DebatersBy: Judy Lai The Cornell Debate Team is more than just the sum of its remarkable tournament results. Debate is also one of the many highlights of the University and a large part of the overall Big Red tradition of excellence. Debaters not only have time to participate in this great activity, but also find the time to contribute to the community by using their special skills. This unique program created by Jethro Hayman allows debaters and other Cornell students to assist others in the area of public speaking. Since speech skills come natural to most debaters, it was logical to create such a program to help others. Specifically, two different community service programs were created: Big Red Little Red and the Speak Out program. Big Red Little Red's goal is to spread the value of speech skills in the Ithaca community by partnering with 4-H. Particularly, students go to local elementary schools and act as mentors to younger students to establish speech and debate skills at an early age. The Speak Out program, established at the MacCormick Secure Prison Facility, assists residents in preparing for upcoming parole board hearings. Similar to Big Red Little Red, Speak Out volunteers act as mentors to residents. Specifically, volunteers assist residents in planning for housing, education, and finances to persuade the board that he (all residents are men) has acknowledged his crime and is ready to succeed in the real world again. The bulk of the program is in teaching the resident to be confident and persuasive speakers for hearings so that they can be released from the facility. A new addition to the Speak Out program, created by Sam Nelson, is the policy debate class taught by debaters at MacCormick. Residents in the class learn the basics of policy debate and enjoy the competitive and argumentative nature of debate. The class seeks to teach residents how to articulate arguments with confidence. Thanks to Jethro's vision and Sam's innovative skills, the Cornell Forensics Team will continue the tradition of giving back to the community. Novice Success!By: Judy Lai Continuing in the tradition of an excellent novice program, this year was no different. With a first place win at Bard College, a second place finish at Binghamton University and late finishes at every tournament, our novices proved that Cornell debate was a force to be reckoned with. This is due in part to our new coaching staff combined with the support and guidance of varsity members. The unique attention that Cornell debate gives to developing novice debaters is crucial to the continuing success of our team. Since Cornell does not recruit high school debaters, we are able to encourage the recruitment of new students for our team. It is because Cornell values its novice debate program and is willing to spend a substantial amount on the program that our novices perform well at regional and national tournaments. This year, we had numerous novice successes with a 1st place speaker at King's College and numerous top 10 speaker awards throughout the year. Jill Bramwell, a senior economics major in the College of Arts & Sciences, attributes debate in helping her become more interested in world issues and becoming a better critical thinker. Bramwell goes further to explain that she will definitely transfer the knowledge and skills from debate to her future job as a lawyer. Not only does Jill expect to utilize her debate skills in the future, she has already seen the returns on her newly gained knowledge in a course she chose because of debate: the economy of China under Mao and Deng. The number of novices involved in debate this year has been tremendous and we hope that many of them will return to become junior varsity and varsity policy debaters in the coming years. The commitment and passion that debaters and coaches show the novices continues to hook the novices into staying in the activity for the long-term. Novice Speaker Awards WonKing's - David Polley/1st
The Legacy ProjectBy: Lara Douglas & Craig Murray In light of the issues that have faced the team this last semester, and with the changes that are going to be happening with the Cornell Forensics Society, we have recognized the need to extend contact between alumni and current members of CFS to help prevent some of these problems from occurring again. The Cornell Forensics Legacy Project was started last year to help in this area, but we realize that many have not heard much about it. The Project is intended to fulfill three primary purposes: reinvigorating contacts with alumni, improving our public relations efforts, and creating documentation to ease transitions between student leaders. We will be producing a high quality brochure to help spread information about the team and improve our funding capabilities, and we are working on increasing our contacts with possible funding sources inside and outside the university. The team currently has a large number of motivated and dedicated young students who are very interested in learning more about CFS alumni and traditions, but very few of these students have met alumni. We have already begun taking steps to improve our alumni contact lists, and we are searching through old records to restore traditions that we believe are beneficial. To help us achieve these goals, we would appreciate it if you could take the time to fill out the following brief survey and return it to Sam Nelson (smn33@cornell.edu), or the debate office. Thank you in advance! Send to: Cornell Debate Team
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