1. Called to order at 1:15

John Fritch (chair), Shaun Whalen (1), Glenn Frappier (2), Joel Rollins (3), Dave Hingstman for Sternhagen (4), Scott Deatherage for Hamilton (5), Ross Smith for Janas (6), Warren Decker (7), Dallas Perkins for mahoney (8), Gordon Mitchell (E), Cate Palczewski (MW and secretary), Ed Panetta (S). Absent: Acheten (W), Stannard (9).

2. Perkins moved and Whalen seconded approval of the minutes as amended. Passed unanimously.

3. Reports

A. Tournament Director: Dr. Parson

78 teams attended the 2001 NDT, with 163 judges. There was an increased number of strikes and revision continue on the preference forms, with the plus system again used. A vast majority of the judge philosophies were turned in, near 100% compliance.

B. Committee Chair

1. Eligibility letters. The process still has a few problems, many because of newcomers unfamiliar with the process. Some appeals continue. Fritch's policy has been to use a strict interpretation of the rule, and then to hand it off to the appeals committee. There does need to be some flexibility since some schools will not give a designation of "in good standing" until the first year of school has been completed.

2. Late applications: The late 2nd round application was not accepted.

C. Board of Trustees: Hynes

1. Hosts: We need to develop a better system for formal indications of desire to host to be turned into the Board. Many might indicate an interest in hosting, but few actually commit to hosting. Such indications of interest should include dates, number of classrooms available, cost, etc.

2. Resources: The Board is working on getting more host resources so that more people can afford to host.

3. 2002 host SMS is set to go except for a letter from the Dean/Provost.

4. 2003: there are tentative indications of interest from a consortium of Georgia schools. They are investigating the cost of renting convention facilities and seeing if the Chancellors office will assist with costs. Dates depend on the availability of conference facilities. Dates would be last weekend in March or first weekend in April.

5. Board chair: Gossett will be the board chair for 2001-2. O'Donnell will continue was treasurer.

6. Date issues:

a. Deatherage urged the Board to stick to the dates in the standing rules, in part because alteration of the dates means that NDT falls on the exam period for schools under the quarter system.

b. Perkins indicated that two times in 7 years the board has offered a "fait accompli," presenting a host not in compliance with the standing rules. Perkins sought clarification as to why violation of the standing rules was accepted and proposed a series of questions, which Hynes answered.

i. Is there a policy that the board maintains secrecy about deliberations for a host? No, for example, Michigan and the Georgia consortium are options.

ii. If no secrecy, who else discusses hosts? Work is proceeding on a web based interest and host proposal form

iii. In the 1980's the board was 2 years ahead; is this not possible now? The Board is going to more aggressively seek out hosts.

iv. Is any member of the board in charge of site selection? For ten years, the chair has volunteered to do this, but it might be a good idea to have another person responsible.

v. If we change the rules to make the tournament cheaper, could we get more hosts? The current hosting document was created after a conversation about such a thing. It might be time to revisit this, with a joint Board/Committee working group. As is, the hosting document allows a very inexpensive tournament to be run. Fundraising is another option.

7. Other possible hosts include: Michigan State, Gonzaga, Berkeley, Michigan. If any committee member hears a rumor of an interested host, s/he should immediately forward the information to Gossett or Hynes: gossett@unt.edu, thynes@westga.edu.

8. Smith asked that we consider whether a weekend should exist between NDT and CEDA if they are not located in proximity to one another. Could we have the tournament later in April, with the season not starting until October? Could CEDA and NDT trade off every year as to who goes first. The Chair of the NDT Board indicated he thought CEDA was clearly the preeminent tournament.

9. The Board recommendation of SMS as the 2002 host was unanimously approved, after being moved by Smith and seconded by Perkins.

10. An ad hoc committee of Deatherage, Gossett, Perkins and Whalen will report at Atlanta on prospective hosts for 2003 and 2004 and on an amendment to the standing rules to make the committee permanent. The committee also will explore the possibility of having the tournament in locations other than universities (i.e. high schools and conference centers).

11. Gonzaga requests that we discuss what it takes to host a quality tournament. The committee indicated it is not all about money.

D. 2001 Tournament host: Leeper at Baylor

Sending in digital pictures ahead of time for ID badges is good. District chairs might want to consider taking pictures at districts.

E. 2002 Tournament host: Fritch at SMS

This will be a Sun-Tues tournament, March 23-26, 2002. The committee dinner will be Friday night. These dates do not conform to NDT standing rules, but had to be accepted because of other constraints (Easter - even though Ross debated at SMS on Easter weekend in 1977. . . . -- , CEDA, etc.). The hotel will cost less than $70.00 per room per night. Airports in St. Louis and Kansas City are 3 1/2 hours away. 75 15 passenger vans will be available for rental at $75-79.00 per day.

F. Ranking Director: The new director will be Jim Hanson. April 15 was Brett's last day.

G. Standing committee reports

1. Judge philosophy (Berry): Near 100% compliance. Delinquents were hunted down by committee members.

2. District bid allocation (Hamilton): The procedure needs some refining. The problem is that allocations may increase, and so there is always the need for runoffs. It was proposed that the numbers attending and the allocations be made public so districts could assess their probability of getting another allocation.

3. Appeals (Janas): The main issue dealt with when things were turned in. Some things came in late, and there was no warning they would be arriving late. Applicants are encouraged to contact the chair if something might have to be late. The chair also was encouraged to find out why things were late. It was reiterated that the deliberations of the appeals committee are to be kept confidential. The committee recommends that the chair puts the community on notice: NO late items will be accepted, period, unless prior notification or some form of paperwork has been turned in.

4. Tournament procedures (Fritch)

4. Old Business:

A. Bid applications: we will try to house all bids on a website that can be accessed by the committee. More details in Atlanta. The website might even include online application forms, where the applicant just fills in the boxes.

B. The can be accessible pre-deadline for the committee to begin processing

C. The community will be encouraged to completely fill out forms, i.e. number of teams attending a tournament.

D. The form could be standard RTF. Possible creators include Louden, Brushke, Hanson.

5. Opsata research proposal. Dallas moved acceptance, Frappier seconded. Unanimous approval.

6. 4 round judge availability rule: Health considerations, of course, will be taken into account. The committee needs to more proactively sell the merits of this approach. For example, a strike sheet from 2000 makes clear the increased availability of judges. Newnam's criticism that the process was not transparent needs to be dealt with at he district level. The committee reaffirmed its support of this rule and it was discovered that districts, for the most part, approved of the rule as well. Hingstman abstained from the discussion and vote. The tournament director indicated there were far fewer 2-3 round commitment judges.

7. Topic areas were announced: mass media, prisons, immigration, Indians of the Western Hemisphere, election reform, poverty, and biomedical ethics.

8. New Committee

1 - TC Winebrenner
MW - tba
W - tba
2 - Kuper or Frappier
4 - Lesicko/Sternhagen
6 - Ross Smith
8 -Dallas Perkins

9. New officers:

A. Chair: Cate Palczewski

B. Secretary: Joel Rollins

C. Parliamentarian: David Hingstman

10. John Fritch was formally thanks for his three years of service.

11. We adjourned.

Submitted,

Cate Palczewski