 Storey
Clayton, Brandeis University
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I'm not political. I don't think the APDA board should be either.
Debate is an intercollegiate competitive event. College basketball
refs aren't political with coaches and players. There's no reason
to have politics influence the debate circuit either.
 To
that end, my goal is to help give the APDA board back to debaters.
I think most people feel disconnected from the board, or that the
board strives to distance itself from the average debater. And if
there isn't distance, it's usually seen as simply campaigning for
the next election. I'd like to build a spirit of openness and inclusion
on the circuit, where sincerity replaces self-interest. That's something
that has to start at the top, with the board, to have any hope of
effecting change throughout APDA.
I also
love debate, and am committed to APDA. I haven't missed a tournament
this year. And that experience has given me some ideas as to what
needs to be changed in APDA. I think expansion is important. I believe
that teams should work more closely with their novices and their
less successful debaters to build a true team environment. Most
importantly, I feel that we need to refocus APDA into a body of
not just elite debate, but of sincere communication as well. APDA
will always be competitive, but this doesn't mean it can't be cooperative
and supportive as well.
If
you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact
me at storey@brandeis.edu.
I'll also be at a tournament every weekend if you'd like to talk.
Peace. |
Lauren
Day Cusick, Princeton University
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Around
4:15 a.m. last year at Yale elections, after hearing the twelfth
candidate for member explain his vision of APDA in one sentence,
I figured out what people want to hear about: lots of female minority
novices who expand the league and raise funds like it's going out
of style. I'm not going to talk about any of those things. Fine,
I'll talk about novices.
I'm
running for member-at-large for a few reasons: Emily's running for
president, and she'd cream me in an election. I don't want to be
in charge of "operations." I'm bad with money. I'm even
worse with "finance." Honestly, I want to serve on the
board because - you really can't write one of these without being
narcissistic - I think I'm a friendly, approachable, respectable
person in a group where many people can be or can appear to be mean,
intimidating, and unethical. I want being like me to be cool, or
at least popularly electable, because I want everyone to have as
much fun as I do on APDA.
I suppose
I'm something of a Jeffersonian when it comes to APDA politics.
I don't think the board should run around implementing a bunch of
kooky schemes. But at the same time, if APDA wants and votes for
kooky schemes, the board should be responsible and implement them
well. In short, the executive board should effectively execute.
Who said tautologies can't get you far in life?
There
are really only two things I specifically want to do. I'd like to
edit the Clash and I'd like to make sure novices stick around
and enjoy themselves. (See? I promised I'd discuss novices.) I think
that the circuit should encourage upperclassmen to debate with novices
early and often. To demonstrate this, we should hold a fall semester
Pro-Ams tournament like CCNY's April tournament. The board, as well
as any upperclassmen willing to make the effort, should also help
schools educate their novices.
I can't
say that I speak for "the north" or "the south,"
since I come from the middle and have never understood what regional
differences debate teams purport to have. The only person I can
speak for is myself, but I hope what I have to say is enough to
convince you to vote for me for member-at-large. |
Patrick
Dempsey, Stanford University
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One thing first: Even though I was raised entirely in Palm Beach
County, Florida, I promise that I won't try to complicate the balloting
process or corrupt the results of this election in any way, shape
or form!
When
I first joined the Stanford Debate team I had no idea of what to
expect from APDA. Early on, I realized how exciting and interesting
it was to debate (and party, of coarse) with some of the most intelligent
and dynamic people in the nation. Since that time, I have worked
hard to get as involved in APDA as possible. For that reason, I
would very much like to serve the members schools of the APDA community
during the next year as Member-at-Large. After having so many good
times and interesting experiences on the circuit, I will work tirelessly
within and without the APDA Board to make APDA a better place.
Before
I tell you about what I stand for, I think it would be best to tell
you a little about myself. As I alluded, I truly love debating on
APDA. Coming from a school where a debate tournament involves four
plane flights, two layovers, several cups of coffee and some serious
jetlag, it should be obvious that I am committed to APDA. Because
of this, I want to get even more hooked by helping direct its policy.
Prior to entering college, I was a highly active debater on the
high school circuit. During this time, I served as President of
my high school debate team for two years. When I took over, our
program was dwindling in numbers, had horrible retention rates and
possessed very little group cohesion. After two years of hard work
and tricky organization, I managed to pull together a team of more
than 140 debaters (out of a school of 3000) with an operating budget
of about $20,000 per year. As we expanded, my primary goal was to
bring people together and help them work as a unit to make the team
as a whole better off.
More
recently, I have worked hard as Co-Captain of the Stanford Debate
Team in charge of recruiting. Due to the difficulties associated
with our long distance travel, I have done all I can to retain our
novices and keep them excited about debate. I hope to continue these
efforts on the APDA board by working to keep as many novices as
possible.
As
Member-at-Large, I hope to work to meet the needs of improved judging
on APDA. As we have discussed this year, we must try to find ways
to both increase the size of the judging pools while not sacrificing
the quality that all APDA debaters deserve. This year, Amer and
myself worked to ensure that our tournament offered the best judging
possible (a big thanks to all the Dinos and others who came and
judged, it made our job so much easier). I propose that APDA work
to provide incentives for judging. I propose that APDA institute
a policy where after judging 5 tournaments (not including your own
or novice tournaments) APDA will subsidize your way to Nationals
to judge. This will get us better judges at both Nationals and at
our normal tournaments.
At
the same time, I am greatly interested in working out new ways to
make it easier for smaller or more distant schools to participate
more actively in APDA. I am thrilled that APDA has been able to
draw in the more active participation of schools like Chicago and
Minnesota. I know how hard long distance travel can be, and I hope
to work with the other Members-at-Large and the E-board to devise
ways to make these trips more financially sound and far more pleasant.
Obviously, I would not recommend that well funded
schools such as my own be at all helped, but I would like to see
APDA work to make the distances between our institutions a little
easier to cross. I propose that APDA direct resources toward helping
new APDA schools (who are required to travel long distances by plane)
in registration fees until they are able to better establish their
programs.
In
the end, I want to try to make things better for us all on APDA.
As member, I promise to listen to everyone's concerns and help turn
those concerns into real policy. Without a doubt, APDA will be as
strong and as much fun next year as it was this year...but let's
see if we can push it a little further and make our weekends that
much better.
Thank
you and good luck to everyone who is running.
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Gregory
Bryan Jennings, University of Maryland, College Park
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Hello,
my name is Gregory Bryan Jennings, and I'm running for APDA Member-At-Large.
To those few who don't know me yet, I've been an active member of
the University of Maryland's Debate team for two years now. I currently
serve as the Treasurer and am in charge of recruitment. Outside
of debate, I'm involved in numerous activities. I serve as Delta
Flight's Adjunct for Air Force ROTC; I'm a Resident Assistant in
Ellicott Hall; and I'm also Editor and Vision Chair for Alpha Sigma
Phi fraternity. I believe that I would be a valuable addition to
the APDA executive board. The most important thing about APDA, in
my opinion, is to strengthen the league as a community and to provide
more resources to strengthen small and new schools on the circuit.
I believe these goals can best be achieved through a President's
retreat, expanding the role of Clash, and providing more
information to new schools.
Most
APDA meetings occur at tournaments. Although this is a convenient
forum, many people are exhausted, and this isn't the ideal time
to hammer out the best policies for APDA. A President's retreat
would allow individuals to sit down and discuss not only issues
that affect the circuit as a whole, but also provide time to discuss
issues that their individual team may be facing and garner answers
from their peer schools. A president's retreat could feature round-table
discussions and guest lectures on issues that plague APDA. In addition,
an opportunity to get to know members from all the schools in a
non-competitive environment might help mend any sectionalism that
has developed on the circuit. Moreover, it would give team presidents
a good opportunity to interact with and provide their opinion to
members of the APDA board.
With
regards to Clash, I think it should be converted to a more
journal-like format. Rather than simply have an ad hoc collection
of articles, a general topic should be agreed to for each class
produced, for example, novice retention or improving your PMR. Clash
would then serve as a forum, where various debaters could share
ideas and which could spark innovation and discourse in the league
as a whole.
I think
it is important to provide new schools with concrete tools that
can allow them to integrate into the circuit quickly. Last year,
Dave Silverman proposed taping debate rounds and providing informal
guides to new schools. I would like to expand on this proposal.
Since many of the concerns that face new schools are not about debating,
but rather are concerns about team management, APDA should provide
guides for new schools on some of these subjects as well. Packets
could be provided on creating novice education programs, effective
ways to recruit and raise funds, managing your first tournament,
and other obstacles which new schools may face.
In
closing, I don't claim to have all the answers. This organization
belongs to every debater. I welcome new ideas and new perspectives
on the issues. Feel free to contact me with any suggestions, ideas,
questions, concerns, or compliments that you have. I can be reached
at 301-314-4190, e-mail me at Gbjennin@wam.umd.edu
or IM me on AOL at Milkguru.
Humbly,
Gregory Bryan Jennings
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Harry
Layman, Columbia University
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My
name is Harry Layman, I'm a junior at Columbia, and I'm running
for member-at-large on the board of APDA. I've spent the past three
years sleeping on floors, arguing a whole lot, and almost always
having a great time. I'd appreciate the opportunity to give back
to APDA by serving on the board.
I think
I'm qualified to do the job of a member-at-large. As vice president
and tournament director for the Columbia team for the past two years,
I have a good deal of practical experience in running large tournaments
that would make me useful as a liason to Novice, Northams, or Worlds.
Additionally, I have helped run Novice for the past two years and
attended Northams for the past three. I also attended Glasgow Worlds
and would be happy to work with the membership to come up with some
suggestions to improve worlds, presumably not all of which would
involve chicken salad. As far as the website is concerned, I have
a good deal of geek skills, including HTML, Java, and Flash, that
will enable me to continue snazzying up the web page.
I miss
very few tournaments all year and spend a lot of time talking to
everyone on the circuit, and I would continue to be accessable as
an APDA board member. If you wish to contact me, feel free to call
me (212-853-5726), email me (hal12@columbia.edu)
or IM me (maatiiin).
Thanks for your time, I'd appreciate your support.
Harry Layman
Columbia '02 |
Emily
Schleicher, New York University
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My
name is Emily Schleicher and it is my pleasure to announce my candidacy
for the position of APDA member at large for the year 2001-2002.
For the past two years I have been an avid debater and advocate
of both the NYU team and APDA at large. I have missed a mere three
weekends in that time and have gained an enormous amount of experience
with many of the individuals who participate on the circuit as well
as the methodology of operation of APDA. For the past year I have
served as the Treasurer of the NYU team and have had the responsibility
of managing a budget of $20,000. I have also gained leadership experience
through the other activities that I participate in on campus, such
as serving as the Vice-President of my hall government.
In
addition to the basic qualifications that I have described above,
I believe that I have a personality that is exceptionally conducive
to the successful fulfillment of the responsibilities of member
at large. I am outgoing, thoughtful and friendly. Those of you who
have had experience with me are familiar with my personality and
know that I am approachable. For those of you whom I have not had
the opportunity to socialize with (or perhaps even meet), please
know that I am approachable. If elected, I will use that characteristic
to represent the APDA body in the most effective manner possible.
It
is the responsibility of the member at large to effectively fulfill
the expectations and desires of the body. I have already discussed
my ability to remain responsive to the needs of this body, but I
also have more specific ideas for the implementation of some of
the desires that have been voiced recently. The most recent matter
of discussion is judging. As I have voiced in previous discussions
of the subject, I believe that it would be exceptionally helpful
to have specific documentation of the methods of training judges
as well as general judging guidelines available to the body of APDA.
This documentation would not be so particularistic as to violate
the individuality of particular tournaments and would not prescribe
the use of one particular scale of judging. Instead, it would provide
a basic guideline of judging that would at least make it possible
for there to be a greater degree of consistency from tournament
to tournament. This has two main benefits; one for the schools running
the tournament and one for the debaters who participate. First off,
the school would get the benefit of having some form of advice of
how judges training can be successful and what material should be
gone over. This would be helpful to the stressed-out individual
who is running the training and would also be useful to newer teams
on the circuit who may not have access to dinos or experienced debaters.
Secondly, participants on the circuit will have some formal knowledge
of what judges expect from them. What is technically acceptable
at one school will be more likely to be acceptable to others.
The
second issue that I would like to discuss is the ever-present problem
of novice retention. Recent APDA attempts to keep new debaters active
on the circuit have focused specifically on the novices themselves.
While this approach is important, I believe that the APDA board
and community would have more success if it were the varsity debaters
who were focused on. This may seem a little backwards, but let me
explain. If there was one thing kept me so active in the circuit
during my novice year, it was the experience I gained with the soial
aspects of APDA. Debate is an enormous amount of fun, but it is
a large commitment that often precludes active members from engaging
in many social events on their own campus. Therefore, it is imperative
that varsity members of teams make sure that their novices are introduced
fully into the social life of APDA and are involved socially with
members of their own team. By focusing on the current members of
teams, APDA would have a much easier time getting novices involved
with all aspects of debate.
The
above discussion of my qualifications for this position and ideas
for future APDA improvement are the mere tip of the iceberg. I have
a passion for this activity and I would love the chance to use that
passion in the capacity of member at large. If there are any issues
that you would like to discuss with me, please feel free to approach
me at any time. I am always available for conversation and honestly
enjoy the opportunity to become acquainted with people whom I have
not yet had experience with. Please feel free to call me at (212)
443-7644 or email me at efs215@nyu.edu.
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Jordan
Segal, Amherst College
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I am
Jordan Segal, a junior at Amherst College, and I am running for
member at large. I have been on our debate team for my entire time
at Amherst, and APDA has given me the opportunity to meet so many
wonderful people; I feel this is my best chance to give back to
APDA. It is also why I wish to encourage APDA expansion; the addition
of University of Minnesota was an amazing boon to APDA, and I’d
like to see more of this.
My
personal qualifications are excellent. I am very approachable, as
I have tried extremely hard, over the last few years, to remain
friends with people “on both sides of the table,” when
it comes to APDA politics, north and south alike. I am also extremely
reachable; my AIM, ICQ, and Email are always on, my phone and cell
phone both have voice-mail, which I check and respond to regularly.
It is safe to say that you can reach me 24-7, 365. Chances are,
you’ve already spoken to me, either to arrange a hybrid or
just a casual conversation to say hi. I think this is crucial for
anyone running for member-at-large, as I view the member position
as being there essentially for you, the APDA body. But most importantly,
I am at virtually every tournament; when I don’t debate, it
is usually because of caps. Moreover, even when I can’t go
and debate, I still try to judge. On the circuit I have achieved
some success placing in the top ten of a bunch of tournaments, and
I recently broke at Stanford. I think this gives me a unique perspective;
I can recognize the needs of both the unknown novice and the APDA
‘superstar.’
As
far as leadership experience goes, I think I’ve had my share
and then some. I am an editor and a founding member of the Five
College Journal of Law and Society, which has, in its first two
years of existence become a nationally published and awarded journal.
I have been tournament director at two extremely well run tournaments,
and I am one of the most devoted members of the Amherst debate team.
I also
think I have an impressive vision of APDA’s future, and, as
I see it, there are three major issues that I will face, as Member-at-large:
1)
Judging. Lately APDAnet has been full of comments about how to address
the problems of judging. While I agree that there is a problem with
quality, quantity, and distribution of judges, I have many concerns
about the limits of APDA board authority. The recent Yale meeting
regarding this issue addressed many judging concerns and I think
it was very constructive. As such I would propose that it would
become an annual meeting. This would keep the judging issue in the
discussion indefinitely, and it would give schools ideas about how
they can individually address the problems of judging.
2)
APDA expansion. I doubt there are many people on APDA against APDA
expansion. However, it does mean that we, as a group need to make
some changes. First and foremost there will be scheduling difficulties,
as we need to make sure that tournaments are scheduled fairly and
evenly distributed around the north, south, and now into the west.
Secondly, training sessions and mentor programs would need to be
expanded significantly. I feel that I am capable of addressing these
concerns in a manner fairly and beneficial to all.
3)
The ‘Great’ Divide. I have always felt that this was an
unnecessary and damaging rift on APDA. Some of the best tournament
I have been to have been the ones in the far south, and I’m
sure many southern teams would say the same about far northern teams.
As such I would encourage teams to cross the ‘Mason-Dixon’
line (i.e. New York City) as many times as possible. I, myself,
routinely travel to southern tournaments, and I have noticed more
and more southern teams traveling north. This is, I think, the key
to ending the north/south divide.
I believe
that I can address each of these concerns in a manner that does
not violate what we have all come to love about APDA, and debate
in general. Thank you, I appreciate your vote. |
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