The University of Akron speech and debate team hosted the Ohio Forensics Association (OFA) Tournament, which is the state championship tournament for speech and debate, at the University of Akron on Feb. 14 and 15.
Schools from all over the state come and compete at this tournament, such as Ohio University, Cedarville University, and several others.
The tournament consists of international public debate and 12 different speaking events including prepared speeches, literary interpretation, extemporaneous speaking and others.
For those who have never attended a speech and debate tournament, the events go far beyond the basic debate you may have seen on television or in a film. A broadcast journalism category involves students receiving a packet of news stories from the week and building it into a five-minute news broadcast. Duo interpretation involves two students performing from scripts and adding introductions of social significance.
One event where UA students competed successfully was the international public debate event. During this event, students meet their opponent in a preparation room and get a slip of paper with five different topics on it.
Topics for the event fall under current events, political topics, and philosophy-oriented resolutions. Students are given 30 minutes to prepare their debate on the topic neither opponent strikes, then they go in front of a judge and debate.
University of Akron student Paige Gibeault placed third overall in the international public debate event and was a finalist in impromptu speaking.
Another highlight from the weekend was when senior Isaac Machar, who has been on the team for the last three years, made it to the final round in seven out of the 11 national-qualifying events.
Machar won the state championship in dramatic interpretation, poetry interpretation, and program oral interpretation. He was also in the final round of duo interpretation. His partner for the duo interpretation Natalie Pham was also a finalist in rhetorical criticism.
Pham was joined by David Haydu, who was also a finalist in rhetorical criticism. Siddu Navaneetha earned points for the debate side in the tournament.
In addition to the individual awards, the team won the overall state championship Quality Award. For the Quality Award, the league takes the total number of points that each team has earned and then divides that total number by the number of events that the team had in the competition.
This is the second year in a row the team has hosted the state tournament.
Mark Rittenour has been directing the team for 24 years, and it is now housed in the UA College of Business.
“I have been directing the team at the University of Akron since the early 2000s,” Rittenour said. “We were asked to host the tournament at UA because many of our alumni from the team come back and serve as volunteer judges,” he said.
“Over the course of the weekend, we had eight of our alumni from the UA Speech and Debate team come back and judge,” he said.
Congratulations to The University of Akron Speech and Debate team.
