1 January 2002
|
News
from Vermont Debate AKA The Voice of Edwin is the weekly newsletter
of the Edwin Lawrence Debate Union at the University of Vermont, an
endowed co-curricular program which trains students in debating and
sponsors national competition and community events. The newsletter is
published every Tuesday during the school year and infrequently at other
times. Alfred C. Snider is the Director. 802-656-0097 voice, 802-238-8345
mobile, 802-656-4275 fax, asnider@zoo.uvm.edu
email, and http://debate.uvm.edu/ldu.html
web site. |
| JILLIAN MARTY AND TERESA HILL | LANA LANGSWEIRDT AND CLAUDIA GRENMAN
|
The day begins at 8 AM as eight teams are involved in four practice debates. The action is fast and furious. By 8:30 all four debates are intensely taking place in four different parts of the debate office. After the debates, a critique and a short business meeting students do research, prepare arguments, organize their files and share evidence and arguments with each other. After a brief lunch students are back in the offices continuing the morning activities. At 2 PM the debaters assemble for 30 minutes of speaking drills. At 2:30 PM negative argument drills begin. Students choose one of their major negative positions and are given a list of affirmative responses prepared by the coaches. They prepare to extend their position answering those arguments, and then give a 4-6 minute speech to a coach. After receiving criticism and suggestions the students make changes and give their speeches again. Some days at 4 PM there is a training session for the younger debaters. At 5 PM the day official ends, except that many students stay later or return to the offices after dinner for more work.
| SPEAKING DRILLS HELD EACH DAY |
| EX-CCV, NOW UVM STUDENT, SHAWN WILKERSON | VILASA CAMPBELL |
This was the schedule for December 27, 28, 39, 30 and 31. Major new argument positions and new affirmative cases were completed before these preparation days began, so there is a lot of new information to absorb.
| CASEY GERVAIS AND MEREDITH PARMETT | ADAM GANA AND BRIAN COLE |
"It has been a very easy preparation for the coaches," said Coach "Tuna" Snider. "The students just show up and do their work, they arrange their own speaking drills, and you practically have to kick them out of the office to make sure they get some play time and down time. The coaches were NOT in favor of 8 AM practice debates, but the students demanded it. There's just no understanding kids today."
| Abigail Trebilcock and Sheila Limprevil | Aaron Fishbone |
The group takes New Year's Day off and then departs early on the morning of January 2 for a two-day winter drive to Kansas City, where they will be attending two major debate tournaments. The original plan had been to fly but students wanted to drive so that more could attend. Because of this UVM will have the biggest contingent at the two tournaments, with eight teams.
Ken Dannett, UVM
1959
"I was on the UVM debating team from 1955-1959 and president of the debating
club during my senior year. I
overlapped with John Burgess who, I noticed, wrote-in for your December newsletter.
In fact if John has an e-mail address I'd like it. Or just a mail address
would do. We lost contact years ago. John was two years ahead
of me and one of the finest debaters that I ever met. I remember "Doc"
Huber, Jack Parker and your namesake, Al Snider, well. Debating was the highlight
of my college experience in the frozen north. I still look back fondly on
my years on the debate team. In fact, as a result of my involvement on the
debating team, I ended up majoring in speech. After leaving UVM, I got a JD
from the University of Chicago and almost 20 years later a Ph.D. in clinical
psychology from the New School for Social Research. I currently practice psychology
and psychoanalysis in New York. I'd love to hear more about what's going on
with the debating team. From an article on the web site about the team, I
assume that the team is short of funds. Do you do anything to involve alumni
in raising funds so that you could attend more tournaments and increase the
stipend? In my years on the debate team, we were constantly traveling. It
really enriched my college life greatly. I look forward to hearing from you."
KANSAS
CITY HERE WE COME....
LDU TERRORISM DEBATES NOW AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNETBoth debates from this Fall are now available for viewing. You will need RealPlayer [http://www.real.com/] to watch these events, but it will scale to match the speed of your connection.
MILITARY ACTION IN AFGHANISTAN? 16 October 2001. http://real.uvm.edu:554/ramgen/debate/terrordebate101601.rm
SHOULD WE FIGHT A WAR AGAINST TERRORISM? 13 November 2001. http://real.uvm.edu:554/ramgen/debate/pubdebterror1101.rm
FROM
THE SQUAD MEETING...
MEETINGS
AND EVENTS COMING UP....
RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS
FLASHPOINT
TELEVISION SHOWSQUAD
MEETING
2001-2002 SEASON |
WINS |
LOSSES |
% |
PREVIOUS |
|
|
|
TOTAL |
210 |
198 |
51.4% |
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