Minutes from the November 19, 1997
National Debate Tournament Committee Meeting
Minutes from the November 19, 1997 |
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Note: The following minutes refer at times to attachments which are unavailable in electronic form.
Held at the NCA Convention
Chicago, Illinois
Arnie Madsen Chaired the Meeting
Tom Jewell served as Secretary.
The meeting was attended by:
District 1 Rep.:Greg Miller
District 2 Rep:not in attendance
District 3 Rep:John Fritch
District 4 Rep:Arnie Madsen
District 5 Rep:Brent Brossmann
District 6 Rep:Ed Panetta
District 7 Rep:Warren Decker
District 8 Rep:Scott Thomson
District 9 Rep:Tom Jewell
Eastern Rep:not in attendance
Southern Rep:Ede Warner
Midwest Rep:Heidi Hamilton
Western Rep:Matt Taylor
Tournament Dir:Donn Parson
Parliamentarian: David Hingstman
The meeting was called to order at noon.
The minutes of the meeting held at the NDT were unanimously approved.
A list of committee and subcommittee members was handed out by Arnie Madsen, along with contact phone and e-mail numbers for members of the Committee and other relevant officers of various organizations related to Committee Business (attachment 1)
Madsen reported that the NDT could not be sanctioned as an official CEDA tournament this year, since it falls outside the CEDA Sweepstakes deadlines. The NDT is on the CEDA Calendar, however.
Madsen also provided the Committee with a report from James Pratt, Executive Secretary of the AFA, which lists current NDT subscribers (attachment 2).
Madsen provided the Committee members with a copy of a letter written by Scott Deatherage on behalf of the Committee to the Arizona and Occidental debaters whose petition to attend the NDT as a hybrid team in 1996 was denied (attachment 3).
REPORT OF THE 1998 HOST
Becky Bjork reported the phone numbers of the tournament hotels:
Olympus, $80 per night:(801) 521-7373
Quality Inn, $75 per night:(801) 521-2930
Bjork also provided a tentative schedule for the NDT (attachment 4), and reported that she had obtained donations of paper and van rentals to help with the tournament.
The Utah Jazz are donating money for the pre-tournament booklet.
A web-page for the tournament is being set up that will include restaurants and sightseeing opportunities.
A research center will be set up at the price of $85 per booth. Each booth will have computer connections for contacting electronic information retrieval services. The cost of the booths will be passed on only to those who elect to use them.
REPORT OF THE TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR
Parson reported that there was generally a favorable response to the 1997 NDT and that plans are well underway for the 52nd NDT to be held at the University of Utah, March 27-30, 1998 (attachment 5).
Parson also presented proposed deadlines for First and Second Round At Large Submissions (attachment 6). After some discussion, the following deadlines were unanimously agreed upon by the Committee:
1. Intent to Participate in the District Process
Wednesday, February 18, 12:00 Noon CST
Due to John Fritch
Allocations announced Thursday, February 19
2. First Round Applications
Thursday, February 12, 5:00 P.M. CST
Due to Committee Members (e-mail or fax)
Bids announced Monday, February 16
3. Second Round Applications
Thursday, March 5, 5:00 P.M. CST
Due to Committee Members (e-mail or fax)
Bids announced Monday, March 9
REPORT OF THE AD HOC COMMITTEE ON HOSTING RESPONSBILITIES
Bill Balthrop presented a draft document of responsibilities for future hosts of the NDT (attachment 7). The Statement of Principle emphasizes that the document is intended to help reduce the expense of hosting the National Debate Tournament. Some of t he specific issues addressed by Balthrop were: (tournament dates could be changed to facilitate cheaper hotel/transportation rates (the host must provide Lexis/Nexis connection facilities (food and beverages must be available at a reasonably, near by location, but the host is not required to provide either (amentities that the host is required to provide are specified in the document (Item #4, Tournament Facilities, was amended to read that the costs of on-line service connections are to be paid by the schools utilizing the connections and not passed on to the entire tournament.
The subcommittee offered the document, as amended, to the NDT Committee, as a proposal, which was adopted unanimously.
REPORT OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
John Gossett reported tentative approval of Wayne State University at the host of the 1999 NDT. The proposed dates are March 27-30, 1999. The tournament would be in one building with three elevators. Food would be catered. The NDT Committee expressed unanimous approval of the recommendation.
The Board will be inviting trophy bids for the NDT, and will provide a list of each item required for the order. If members of the Committee want to recommend trophy dealers to the Board, they should contact John Gossett before December 1, 1997.
The Board has tentatively approved the new host responsibilities document.
The Board requests members of the Committee to seek alumni addresses for research and fundraising purposes.
The Board has been discussing a charter document for the Fund for the 21st Century in order to clarify the purpose and scope of the fund.
The Board seeks input on criteria for the Keele award.
Bill Balthrop proposed an amendment to the standing rules to allow NDT fees and memberships to be paid by credit card. The motion passed unanimously.
Balthrop also presented a projected budget for 1997-1998 (attachment ). He predicted that $285 per team would be the most likely scenario for entry fees for this year's (1998) NDT. The proposed budget was approved unanimously.
REPORT OF THE RANKING DIRECTOR
David Cheshier presented the current 1997-1998 Ranking Report (attachment 9) and a series of questions (attachment 10) to be considered by the NDT Committee at a future date. The basic tenor of the questions was whether the NDT Ranking procedure merely d uplicated the procedure already being used by CEDA. A brief discussion ensued which highlighted some of the advantages of overlap, centering on the idea that providing several places a program can seek recognition to share with their respective colleges is positive and that the NDT ranking system serves that function well.
REPORT OF THE JUDGE PHILOSOPHY COMMITTEE
Mike Berry reported that this year's philosophy booklet will be printed front and back to save mailing costs. The deadline for philosophies will be March 19, 1998. It was suggested that District Chairs could help the process by collecting philosophies a t the respective district tournaments and forwarding them to Mike.
REPORT ON STRESS AND BURNOUT
Star Muir presented a copy of his paper, "Community Perspectives on Stress and Burnout" (attachment 11) that resulted from his research at the 1997 NDT. He pointed out that 67% of the respondents feel there is a problem and 77% think it should be addressed.
NEW BUSINESS
1. It was proposed to amend standing rule of the Committee IIA2 by adding the sentence, "The director shall have the responsibility for the preparation and mailing of the National Tournament booklet." The motion was made by Ede Warner and seconded by Miller and passed unanimously.
2. Motion by Miller, seconded by Fritch to amend standing rule IIIF1 to read, "All judges from participating institutions are required to remain at the tournament through the octa-final round. All judges from institutions with teams participating in elim ination rounds are required to remain at the tournament one round beyond the elimination of their final team." The rest of the section to remain the same. The amendment passed unanimously.
3. Dallas Perkins suggested a motion to permit a three year joint subscription for Harvard and MIT. The motion was made by Taylor and seconded by Warner. A lengthy discussion ensued regarding the advisability of such a proposal. Perkins explained that MIT has not had an NDT program for several years and that there are students who want to compete but who have no MIT support. He suggested that a temporary, three year subscription, might give the MIT program an opportunity to muster MIT support as a result of the success of their students. Perkins also pointed out the MIT and Harvard students regularly are cross-admitted, share libraries, and in many ways operate as a community. Some of the limits of a proposal discussed included: the schools must be in the same district, that one of the programs must have less than $1,000 per year allocated to for ensics, that one of the programs does not have a staff or faculty member assigned to forensics, and that the administration of both schools consent to the joint venture.
At 4:00 p.m., the meeting was POSTPONED until the next morning to give proponents of the joint subscription time to draft a specific motion.
At 10:00 a.m. on November 20, the Committee reconvened to discuss the joint subscription proposal (attachment).
Present at the meeting were:
Arnie Madsen Chaired the Meeting
Tom Jewell served as Secretary.
The meeting was attended by:
District 1 Rep.: Greg Miller
District 2 Rep:Jim Hansen for Jamey Dumas
District 3 Rep:John Fritch
District 4 Rep:Arnie Madsen
District 5 Rep:Steve Mancuso for Brent Brossman
District 6 Rep:Ede Warner for Ed Panetta
District 7 Rep:Warren Decker
District 8 Rep:Dallas Perkins for Scott Thomson
District 9 Rep:Tom Jewell
Eastern Rep:not present
Southern Rep:Ede Warner
Midwest Rep:Heidi Hamilton
Western Rep:Matt Taylor
Parliamentarian: Frank Harrison for David Hingstman
The proposal read as follows:
The NDT Committee may approve a joint subscription to the NDT if the applicants for such a subscription satisfy the Committee, or its designated subcommittee, at or before its February (Northwestern) meeting, that the following conditions are met:
1) The students in fact participate on a unified debate team;
2) The two schools are in close geographic proximity, which at a minimum shall mean that they are from the same district; 3) At least one of the schools must meet all of these criterion:
A.has no policy debate program or coach
B. currently dedicates only very limited financial support for policy debate; and
C. an appropriate official has endorsed, in writing, the participation of its students in the unified debate team.
Once approval has been granted, teams from the two schools involved shall be allowed to compete at the NDT as if they were from a single subscribing institution.
No approval by the NDT Committee pursuant to this provision shall be for a duration of more than three NDT's.
A straw vote resulted in a 6-5 vote against the motion. Votes in favor of the motion were from: Miller, Hansen, Thompson, Taylor, Warner. Votes against the motion were from: Fritch, Brossman, Panetta, Decker, Jewell, Hamilton.
A motion was made by Warner, seconded by Mancuso, to strictly enforce the minimum round requirements for judges that constitute a team's obligated rounds at the NDT. The Committee changed the rule regarding judge qualifications for the NDT. Effective at the 1998 NDT at Utah, all judges MUST have judged at least 12 rounds on the current topic prior to the NDT. Recognizing that some might want to volunteer to judge at the NDT (alums, extra persons from institutions, and so on), parties who do no have at least 12 rounds on the topic will be listed separately on the strike sheet, and a team's indication that a judge is an A/B/C/strike will not count against that team's required totals in those categories. However, ALL team and hired judges MUST have at leas t 12 rounds. The motion, which changes Standing Rule IIIA2, to: "Must have judged at least 12 rounds on the current resolution during the current season," passed unanimously.
An amendment offered by Fritch, and seconded by Mancuso, recommended that directors of programs shall not be affected by the rule of the main motion. The amendment failed.
An amendment offered by Mancuso, and seconded by Hansen, suggested that all judges who fail to meet the 12 round requirement should be free strikes. The amendment passed unanimously.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 a.m.