Minutes from the March 30, 1995
National Debate Tournament Committee Meeting


The meeting was held at the National Debate Tournament, West Georgia College, Georgia.

Committee Chair Frank Harrison called the meeting to order at 1:10 pm. Brett O'Donnell serving as Secretary. Arnie Madsen serving as Parliamentarian.

Present: Gass for District One, Backus for District Three, Palczewski for District Four, Mancuso and Brossman (proxy for Hinck) for District Five, Patterson for District Six, O'Donnell for District Seven, Perkins for District Eight, Pickering for District Nine, Katsulas as AFA Eastern Representative, Panetta as AFA Southern Representative, Hingstman as AFA Central Representative, Southworth as AFA Western Representative, Parson as Tournament Director, Harrison as Chair, and Gibson (ex-officio) as Tournament Host.

MINUTES

The minutes from the NDT Committee meeting at the Wake Forest University Tournament were approved without objection (Patterson motion, Gass second, passed unanimously).

REPORT OF THE NDT BOARD OF TRUSTEES (Gossett)

The Chair of the Board announced that Liberty University's invitation to host the 1997 National Debate Tournament had been accepted pending a cite visit by a member of the Board.

The Chair announced that Lee Polk was elected as the 1995-96 Chair of the Board of Trustees.

Gossett reported that the Board was assisting in the planning for the 50th National Debate Tournament to be held at Wake Forest University.

REPORT OF THE TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR (Parson)

The Director reported on the status of the 1995 National Debate Tournament.

Parson announced that Pat Ganer and Eric Doxtader were added to the 1995 tab room staff.

The Director explained the "A," "B," and "C" judge preference system. The goal of the director is to place two "A's" and one "B" in each debate.

Star Muir's research project was then introduced. Muir explained the nature of his study. He requested permission of the committee to conduct a survey that would evaluate the disclosure rule, the value of written ballots, and "in round" critiques. Muir also requested permission to videotape debates. He explained that the videotapes are used for educational purposes only and that the permission of the debaters would be obtained. Parson raised the issue of permission to videotape the final debate.

Perkins moved that Muir's study be approved (Pickering second). Motion passed unanimously.

REPORT OF THE 1995 TOURNAMENT HOST (Gibson)

It was announced that photocopying is available at the hotel at no cost to the tournament participants.

Gibson explained the one hundred dollar fee for a Lexis/Nexis connection. He informed the committee that Southern Bell had donated $5,000.00 toward the service. The charge to tournament users was to pay the remaining cost of the service.

Gibson announced that the award for the coach of the winning team at the National Debate Tournament would be presented at the banquet by the donor of the award.

REPORT OF THE 1996 TOURNAMENT HOST (Louden)

Louden reported that funds for the tournament had been secured.

Debate rounds on Friday will be held at the tournament hotel.

The dates for the tournament are March 28-April 1.

It was announced that in addition to the many special events that are being planned for the 50th NDT, there will be events for NDT alumni.

REPORT OF THE CHAIR (Harrison)

The Chair again requested that District Six forward its constitution to the Chair of the NDT Committee.

The Chair reminded the Committee that two subcommittees (Appeals and Tournament Advisory) may be called into service during the tournament.

REPORT OF THE TOPIC COMMITTEE CHAIR (Hingstman)

Hingstman announced that Jody Terry will be joining the Topic Committee as the student representative.

Based on the topic survey conducted at Wake Forest, the Middle East, Latin America, and Proliferation topics are likely to be the three foreign policy topics on the ballot for the 1995-96 season.

The topic ballot will be mailed by April 28.

Hingstman requested that Districts One and Nine and Five and Six elect new representatives to the Topic Committee to replace those members who's term has expired.

Hingstman announced that topic papers have been and will be posted to the NDT-Listserv.

REPORT OF NDT JUDGE BOOKLET COMMITTEE CHAIR (Berry)

It was reported that the Judge Philosophy Booklet will not exceed its allocated budget. However, a future increase in the budget may be necessary to cover the costs of producing the booklet.

Berry suggested that the list of judges be finalized earlier. He reported that there were still individuals who had not submitted their judging philosophies and that these individuals had not been fined.

Perkins moved that all individuals not handing in judge philosophies by the end of the NDT Committee meeting (with the discretion of the Tournament Director) will be fined twenty-five dollars as prescribed by the earlier rule. Gass second. Motion passed unanimously.

Southworth questioned the quality of some of the judge philosophies. Berry reported that he included any judge philosophy that was submitted without editorial.

The Chair requested a schedule of tournaments for the 1995-96 season.

OLD BUSINESS

The Patterson proposal from the Wake Forest meeting to amend Standing Rule II C 2 c (4) was reintroduced.

Mancuso offered the following amendment as an introduction to the rule change:

"Unless a school has received two bids in the first round at-large process..."

Patterson accepted the Mancuso amendment as a friendly amendment.

A lengthy debate over how teams qualify through the district process occurred. Those objecting to the rule change noted that they were opposed to the NDT Committee dictating policy to the districts and that third teams may skew the results of the district qualifying process. Objectors also noted that it removes the right of the coach to decide on factors other than the win-loss record who is that school's second and third teams. Advocates for the rule change argued that this change will solve for schools who attempt to submit their second team for a third team bid.

Backus suggested that districts rank before their district tournaments to determine which teams must attend the district tournament, but that third teams not be required to attend the district tournament. This was offered as an interpretation of the current standing rule.

Gass moved as a substitute motion:

"To be eligible to apply for a second round bid a team may not have a lower district ranking than any other team from that school unless the applying team competed in their district's process." Pickering second.

Palczewski and Backus with the Committee's agreement interpreted Patterson's motion to include a ranking process that would occur before the district tournament because the current portion of the rule to remain under the Patterson motion reads "Participation in the district process." They explained that their interpretation would allow districts to prerank teams as part of their "process" to determine what teams should attend the district tournament if a district did not want to allow third teams to enter or to provide a preseeding for a district tournament that does allow third teams to compete.

Hingstman offered an amendment as an addition to the substitute motion:

"Teams applying for third team qualification must submit district qualification forms and/or rankings whichever their district uses of all teams participating in the district process from that school with their bid forms. The NDT Tournament Director will poll the NDT Committee members when accepting second round rankings to determine whether the NDT Committee believes that the admission criteria have been satisfied. If a majority of the NDT Committee believes that the admission criteria have not been satisfied, third team qualification for that school will be denied." Pickering second. The Gass-Hingstman motion was not accepted as a friendly amendment.

The Committee adjourned for a break from 2:30 pm until 2:40 pm.

An extensive discussion of both motions occurred.

Perkins moved to table the discussion. Pickering second.

After unclear division of a voice vote on the motion to table, a roll call vote was taken. District One voted no, District Three voted aye, District Four voted no, District Five voted no, District Six voted no, District Seven voted no, District Eight voted aye, District Nine voted aye, AFA Eastern voted no, AFA Southern voted no, AFA Midwestern voted no, AFA Western voted aye, the Chair abstained. The motion to table failed eight to four.

The question was then called on the substitute motion. The substitute failed on a voice vote. No roll call was recorded.

Original motion (Patterson) reentered discussion. Palczewski again clarified with Patterson that motion does not intend to require districts to have third teams to compete in the district tournament, but only participate in the district process at some point. Patterson and the Committee agreed on this interpretation.

The question was called on the Patterson motion. A roll call vote was recorded. District One voted aye, District Three voted no, District Four voted aye, District Five voted aye, District Six voted aye, District Seven voted no, District Eight abstained, District Nine voted no, AFA Eastern voted aye, AFA Southern voted aye, AFA Midwestern voted aye, AFA Western voted no, the Chair voted no. The motion passed 7-5-1. However, the motion did not pass with a two-thirds majority and must be voted on again at the 1995 SCA NDT Committee meeting. It will be listed under the "Old Business" section of the agenda for that meeting.

NEW BUSINESS

Pickering moved:

"That the NDT be held as a modified open tournament for a two year time period." Gass second.

Pickering clarified that the intent of her motion is to allow two teams per school, that those teams must have at least participated in three tournaments and have debated at least twenty-four varsity rounds, teams must be able to cover their judging commitment, the top sixteen teams will be ranked, districts will rank for seeding purposes, and up to six third teams will be allowed.

A lengthy discussion of an open NDT followed. Muir suggested that all schools be guaranteed one team and that all other teams compete for other slots based on their win-loss percentage. Gossett endorsed this idea.

Madsen noted that the NDT Charter may not allow this type of change in the qualification procedure. This will have to be considered if the Committee decides to take action on opening the NDT.

A straw poll of the committee was taken to understand committee members' positions on this issue. There was a split on the committee with a majority in favor of decreasing the size of the NDT without opening the tournament, while others were divided on how to open the tournament (open and make the tournament smaller or larger).

Some of the issues raised in the discussion were the logistics of hosting the NDT with an indeterminate size, the sizable cost of eliminating only a few teams in the district process, the impact of tournament size on smaller and larger programs, the number of teams allowed per school in relation to the quality of the tournament, the impact of changing the size of the NDT on the number of schools participating in NDT policy debate, and the nature of the NDT as distinct from other regular season tournaments.

Perkins suggested that an open NDT proposal with a fifty percent win-loss requirement with a limited number of third teams allowed to qualify may have chance at passing.

Pickering moved that the motion be tabled to the informal meeting at the University of Northern Iowa and the next formal meeting of the Committee at SCA so that more study could be done on the proposal.

Southworth moved a friendly amendment that a subcommittee be established to work on a proposal. The motion passed unanimously.

The Chair appointed Pickering as convener of the committee and Gass, Strange, Patterson, Muir as members of the subcommittee to construct a proposal for an open NDT.

Gass proposed the following:

"The NDT Committee wishes to express its sincere appreciation to Doyle Srader, of the University of Georgia, for establishing and maintaining the "NDT-L," an electronic bulletin board for the discussion of issues relating to NDT debate. The NDT-L has provided a forum for disseminating tournament information, for exchanging ideas on debate theory and pedagogy, and for exploring ways of improving the activity to better meet the needs of students and coaches. Doyle Srader deserves high praise for his work in moving the NDT community onto the information superhighway." The motion passed unanimously.

Mancuso proposed that a system be established to disseminate evidence to smaller schools. Mancuso volunteered to be in charge of such a project.

The Chair appointed Mancuso to chair a committee to perform the task of assembling an evidence packet to be available to smaller programs. DeLoach and O'Donnell were appointed members of the committee.

Southworth offered a motion of commendation for Mike Berry and King's College for their work on the Tournament Judges Booklet. The motion passed unanimously.

A straw poll on the disclosure rule was taken. There is a split on the NDT Committee on this issue.

The Chair announced the members of the 1995-96 NDT Committee. District One is Bob Gass, District Three is Nick Backus, District Four has yet to elect, District Five is Ed Hinck, District Six is Ross Smith, District Seven is Brett O'Donnell, District Eight is Ken Strange, District Nine is Barb Pickering, AFA Eastern is John Katsulas, AFA Southern is Ed Panetta, AFA Midwestern is Arnie Madsen, AFA Western is Tom Jewell.

The Chair invited nominations for the position of Chair of the 1995-96 NDT Committee.

Patterson nominated Madsen for Chair. No other nominations were presented. Madsen was elected unanimously.

The Chair invited nominations for position of Secretary of the NDT Committee.

Katsulas nominated O'Donnell. No other nominations were presented. O'Donnell was elected unanimously.

The Chair invited nominations for the Position of Parliamentarian of the NDT Committee.

Patterson nominated Hingstman. No other nominations were presented. Hingstman was elected unanimously, but accepted pending the outcome of the District Four election.

Patterson moved that the Committee commend the superior performance and service of the Chair, Frank Harrison. The motion passed unanimously.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:15 pm.

Respectfully Submitted, Brett O'Donnell, Secretary