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4 April 2006

SUCCESSFUL CEDA NATIONALS ENDS SEASON
Year ends with 2-1 loss to Harvard; Younger teams do well

| Nick and Jason | Leslie and Megan|

| Brady and Stephanie | Shane and Sam |

A 2-1 elimination round loss to Harvard ended the University of Vermont’s 2005-2006 debate season. In the elimination rounds at CEDA Nationals in Dallas Nick and Jason won the toss and picked negative. The judges were Cade Hamilton of North Texas, Calum Matheson of North Texas and Todd Jordan of Wake Forest. It was a spirited debate and the judges took almost 40 minutes to make a decision. Hamilton voted for Vermont, noting that there was a disconnect between Harvard’s two rebuttals, while the other two judges voted affirmative for Harvard on the permutation of the critique Vermont was running. While disappointed, Nick took responsibility, saying that spending more time on the permutation in the last negative rebuttal could have made all the difference. During the season Jason and Nick were one of the nation’s better negative teams with a 70% win-loss record. The pair won two tournaments and had a 66% win-loss record in elimination rounds. They will return as seniors next year.
Jason is a poster boy of sorts for the Vermont debate program. He saw a sign about the debate team as a first year student and decided to join. Even with a lackluster novice season he stuck with it and has advanced rapidly. We say that you can join our debate team with no previous experience and with hard work and determination you can rise to debate at the highest levels of national competition against people with four years of high school experience and often on scholarship. Jason proves that it can be and has been done.
Nick has been the leader of the squad all year long. He serves as research director and never requests things of others that he does not demand of himself. His tireless research efforts and his eye for argumentative innovation have placed him in a position to not only perform well himself, but to lift up all those around him. Jason and the entire squad could not have done it without him.
The three other teams did Vermont proud and suggest that next year will, indeed, be a very good year. Megan Harlow and Leslie Keller, now in their JV year after being novice national champions last year, were 4-3 going into round 8, and a win would have meant participation in the elimination rounds, but it was not to be after a tough loss. Senior Brady Fletcher and sophomore Stephanie Kimerer (former novice national champs last year as well) finished 3-5, with Brady claiming to be satisfied and Stephanie vowing to be back. JV debater Shane Clark and novice Sam Lavallee posted a respectable 2-6 at a varsity national championship tournament and called it valuable experience.
The tournament may well have been the last tournament for the powerhouse coaching combination of Helen and Justin Morgan Parmett. The demands of family and advanced academic career are calling, and both announced their resignation earlier in the year but will probably still remain involved at some level. Their young son Nakobe has been a joy to travel with and watch grow. "Their contribution has been immense," said Snider, "and we will be recalling all of that in the weeks to come."
<== Charlie Chafer with Bill Clinton
Special thanks should go to Charles Chafer, President and CEO of Space Services, Inc. who came up to Dallas to support the LDU by taking them out to a celebratory dinner and providing moral support. An NDT finalist for Georgetown University, Charlie has been a long-time supporter of the program and has visited the team while on the road a number of times. His activities currently involve organizing commercial space ventures, solar storm warning spacecraft, and space burials (he will be launching James Doohan's ashes, Scotty of Star trek fame, into space next year). He has previously launched he ashes of Timothy Leary, Gene Roddenberry and Gerard O'Neill into space. Charlie received the 1996 National Space Society Pioneer Award for Space Business, and the 1997 Space Frontier Foundation “From Vision to Reality” award for his commercial space leadership.

FUNDRAISING APPEAL SHIFTS FROM SHORT TO LONG TERM

With this year's needs met, the LDU fundraising focus now turns to enhancing the long-term financial viability of the program. The goal is to enhance the endowment so that the program will be financially secure through the 21st century. Many alumni received a mailing in the last two weeks outlining the beginning of our campaign and the reasons for giving. If you did not, please email your mailing address to Tuna at alfred.snider@uvm.edu.
Specific efforts include:
-Collection and expansion of names and addresses to fill out the alumni contact list.
-Establishment of relationships with debaters from the 1950's and 1960's about the LDU of the 21st Century.
-Creation of giving plans and recognition goals.
-Establishment of a alumni referral service so that former debaters can make contact with their team mates.
-Work to establish a companion endowment for bequests and targeted giving.
-Events to be held in major cities to bring together debate alumni and others.
-Creation of a "Distinguished Alumni Award" to be given to an outstanding alumni each year at the banquet.
"We need to score some big donations to raise another million dollars," said Snider, "and that includes working on planned giving, bequests and more, especially from the debaters of Doc Huber's era, who are now really making their debate experience pay off. They have the ability to give and the Development office at UVM is solidly behind us with all of their expertise. If Jerry Falwell's Liberty University can spend $500,000 a year on debate, we can achieve a goal of $130,000 for UVM."
Special thanks go to some people who have helped in extraordinary ways that were inadvertently left out of the newsletter. Emily Sanders' parents in Pennsylvania opened their home to us after the West Virginia tournament so we could avoid a dangerous drive home while tired. Thank you so much for your hospitality, and for raising an awesome daughter. Thanks also go to Houston-based space businessman Charles Chafer for his sponsorship of the team on the upcoming trip to Dallas.
BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT, GIVE NOW IF YOU CAN! Please make checks payable to "UVM Debate." You can mail them to Lawrence Debate Union, 475 Main Street, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. Gifts are tax deductible.
Gifts can now be made online at https://alumni.uvm.edu/giving/support.asp , but please make sure to designate your gift for "Debate." Email your pdf receipt to alfred.snider@uvm.edu.
If you would like to talk about a major gift or a bequest you should contact Randy Wilson who is our contact in Development, and you can contact him by phone - Desk: 802/656-4253, Cell: 802/598-3961, Toll Free: 888/458-8691, Fax: 802/656-8678, or by e-mail: randy.wilson@uvm.edu.
We will have a complete list of donors available soon on a new and expanded LDU alumni website.

LDU ANNOUNCES PUBLIC DEBATE DURING EARTH WEEK

The LDU will hold a major public debate on campus on April 18, 2006. The event will be co-sponsored by the SPEAKS residential group in the Living and Learning Center, and more sponsors will probably be added. Now the task is to find students and professors to debate about a hot topic concerning the ecology. Suggestions currently include: Wind power, global warming, environmentalism vs. deep ecology, and more are being sought.

Taylor Lalemand is leading the effort but seeks help and advice.

FLASHPOINT TELEVISION

Watch Flashpoint from your computer screen whenever you want! You will need RealPlayer installed on your computer to become a part of our growing audience. Here are some recent programs now available at http://debate.uvm.edu/flashpoint.html. Watch on Burlington Channel 15 Tuesday 12:30 PM, Thursday 10 PM, Saturday 1 PM.
Next taping: April 8, Saturday. We need topics and panelists.
Zoe Anderson is the topic and program coordinator.

SQUAD MEETS AT 6 PM EACH MONDAY NIGHT, 475 MAIN STREET, ALL WELCOME!

ALWAYS CALL IT HUBER HOUSE!