Hello Colleagues -

The NDCA Board Elections ballot is out! We have three open board positions to fill this year. Each elected board member will serve for three years.

You may vote for up to three candidates. The deadline for voting is 10/31 – you must be an NDCA member and have paid your 2009-2010 dues by that date if you want your vote to count.

Please send your votes (for up to three people) to Tara at ttate@glenbrook.k12.il.us.

Here are the candidacy statements: NDCA Board Statements 2009

Thanks!
Maggie Berthiaume

The NDCA Board has passed a version of an ethics statement that we would like the membership body to vote on. This is a statement about behaviors/norms/expectations for policy debate (other debate events will be future projects!). The ethics statement is attached.

This is not about the NDCA being the enforcer of these rules. If the document passes the membership body, we hope tournament directors will utilize the ethics statement for their own tournaments to help us create community norms about expectations of our coaches and students. If it passes the membership body, I know many coaches plan on utilizing this document as an “honor code” and have their own students sign. If it does pass, it will be applied as a norm/expectation for the NDCA Championships.

A few things:
1 – It must pass by 60% of the membership body. Not voting is an essential “no” vote. Please take the two seconds to email me a “yes” or “no”.
2 – Only active members get to vote. Please get your memberships updated!
3 – It is a “yes”/”no” vote….no changes.
4 – Feel free to discuss this document on the NDCA-L.
5 – Please have your vote submitted to me (ttate@glenbrook.k12.il.us) by October 22.

Thanks to the numerous coaches and students who had a hand in compiling this document and going through its revisions.

Tara Tate
Board member, NDCA

NDCA Ethics Statement

Topic Ballot

SYNOPSIS OF THE PROBLEM AREAS FOR 2010-2011

PROBLEM AREA I: Latin America

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its trade promotion toward one or more Latin American countries.

Latin America is one of the fastest growing trade partners with the United States. However, with the expiration of the Trade Promotion Authority, the presence of costly tariff rate quotas (TRQs) and the severe barriers to commerce presented by the many U.S. farm subsidies, relations with the region are going downhill quickly. It doesn’t help that the United States is reluctant to negotiate in the area of workers’ rights and yet never ceases to pursue tougher investment and intellectual property regulations. United States interest in free trade with Latin America has clearly taken quite a downturn from the national priority the Monroe and proceeding administrations once made it. The implications of this declining relationship are enormous. If Latin America cannot gain free access to U.S. markets, its developing economies may not be able to get the stimulation they need. If the U.S. continues with protectionist policies, then the efficiency of its businesses and companies will continue to fall and eventually hope of competing with nations like China may be lost. The United States ought to be a world leader in trade and it cannot afford to falter in this arena in such a globalized world. Affirmatives will have access to plans reducing/eliminating specific farm subsidies, of which there are many (each with its own unique set of advantages and consequences). Additionally, Affirmative ground will include the embargo on Cuba, the freedom to advocate new, non-existing policies and reducing or eliminating current TRQs for Latin American countries of choice. Counterplans will probably be popular as well, specifically exclusion counterplans (especially with Cuba), a plethora of disadvantages, solvency arguments and kritiks on capitalism, colonialism, possibly racism and many others. Author: Noah Abolafia-Rosenzweig, Texas.

PROBLEM AREA II: CHINA

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China on one or more of the following issues: trade, economy, environment.

The United States and China are the two largest economies in the world when Gross Domestic Product is measured on a purchasing power basis. There are powerful reasons for the United States to build closer ties with China. Simultaneously, there are reasons for caution, given the human rights conditions and central control of the economy in China. Former Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, wrote an article in the September/October 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs entitled, “Strengthening U.S.-Chinese Ties: A Strategic Economic Engagement,” where he explains “economic engagement” as promoting interdependence between the U.S. and Chinese economies. He also explains “economic engagement” by contrasting it with the alternatives. “There are three possible ways for the United States and China to pursue their economic and trade relations: robust engagement, dispute resolution through multilateral and bilateral enforcement measures or punitive legislation.” Possible affirmative cases could focus on promoting product safety, direct foreign investment, management of currencies, protection of the environment, workers’ rights, respecting intellectual property rights, inclusion of China in major international forums such as the G8, among others. Negative positions could focus on human rights issues, concern that a stronger economy would strengthen the Chinese military, changes in the balance of power in Asia, tensions within the World Trade Organization, among others. Author: Matthew Murrell, Texas.

PROBLEM AREA III: RUSSIA

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its military and/or economic engagement toward Russia.

The United States’ relations with Russia are strategically critical however, as noted by Leslie Belowitz, Chief Executive Officer and William T. Golden, Chair of the American Academy, “Since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly 20 years ago, U.S. policy toward Russia and its neighbors has become fragmented, inconsistent and fleeting. Yet, Russia and other former Soviet states are increasingly important in the international arena, particularly with respect to energy security, nuclear nonproliferation, illicit trade and terrorism.” For many in America and the West, trust is an issue. Even though the Soviet Union is gone and a pseudo-democratic Russia has emerged, relations are still tense. Russia is a former superpower with weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. They have allied themselves with anti-American governments in countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Libya. Affirmative case areas may include Russia’s accession to the WTO, repealing/revising the Jackson/Vanik Amendment, increasing Freedom Support Act funds to Russia, negotiating a bi-lateral investment treaty, weapons of mass destruction, among others. Negative positions could focus on human rights issues, weakening of the U.S. nuclear deterrence capability, the lack of willingness of the WTO for Russian accession, increasing Freedom Support funds, increasing deficit spending, among others. Author: Kenneth Rohrbach, Texas.

PROBLEM AREA IV: UNITED NATIONS

Resolved: The United Nations should substantially reform one or more of the following organizations: United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations World Food Programme.

The United Nations is the most important and enduring international organization yet it is the organization that people either love or hate; yet, few can argue the importance of a multilateral organization capable of handling complex issues in today’s climate. Since the mid-1900’s, academics and the media have exposed the need for a multilateral governing body and the problems within the existing governing body. With the UN as an international actor in the resolution rather than the United States federal government, this resolution offers a unique set of theory and argumentation not previously afforded to debaters with past resolutions. In Wendell Gordon’s book, The United Nations: At the Crossroads of Reform, some of the clear issues surrounding the formation of the United Nations became clear: “to maintain international peace and security…” It was also “to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion…”. Yet the nations of the world who charged the UN with these great missions never permitted it to acquire the resources needed to fulfill them.” While the span of organizations will provide for a multitude of interesting and meaningful affirmatives cases, there will also be a wide variety of negative arguments. Possible affirmatives will include human rights, world poverty and environmental issues as well as organizational restructuring and procedural changes within each organization. Negatives will find a breadth of argumentation stemming from past UN reforms and corruption within the organization as well as the programmes themselves. Other international states and non-governmental organizations (NGO) will provide a plethora of alternate actor counterplans. Critical arguments will be found in arguments on dehumanization and development. Author: Rachell Grant, Texas.

PROBLEM AREA V: MILITARY DEPLOYMENT

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey.

The United States global military presence has expanded dramatically in the last 50 years. Despite the breadth of its global deployment, most troops and police forces are concentrated in South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Turkey. These deployments are urgent issues, with stories appearing in newspapers world-wide every single day. This resolution offers affirmatives not only an opportunity to engage the debate about military deployments but to engage these issues in a unique direction – by reducing U.S. military deployments. Most resolutions ask affirmatives to increase U.S. involvement in the world in some ways. Central issues on the topic include U.S. leadership, anti-Americanism, U.S. readiness, imperial decline and global weapons proliferation. Affirmatives can focus on reducing substantial numbers of troops, reducing nuclear weapons deployments in Turkey and South Korea, reducing missile defense systems and reducing military participation in the war on drugs in these countries. Negative arguments include countries developing nuclear weapons in response to reductions in U.S. security commitments, the harms of reducing U.S. global leadership and aggression of rogue states. Author: Stefan Bauschard, New York.

NFHS BALLOT FOR TOPIC SELECTION

Proposed Topic Areas and Resolutions for 2010-2011

Rank the topic areas 1 (best) through 5. The two areas receiving the lowest totals will be placed on the second ballot to select the 2010-11 debate topic.

_____ I. Latin America

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its trade promotion toward one or more Latin American countries.

_____ II. CHINA

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China on one or more of the following issues: trade, economy, environment.

_____ III. RUSSIA

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its military and/or economic engagement toward Russia.

_____ IV. UNITED NATIONS

Resolved: The United Nations should substantially reform one or more of the following organizations: United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations World Food Programme.

_____ V. MILITARY DEPLOYMENT

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey.

Name:

Organization:

Membership forms can be downloaded here: http://debatecoaches.org/join-or-support-us/become-a-member/

Thank you for your ongoing support.

- The NDCA Board

Results

Social Pod:
3 – Daniel Taylor – Westminster
2 – Will Thibeau – GBS
1 – Layne Kirshon – Kinkaid

Services Pod:
3 – Alex Miles – St. Mark’s
2 – Andrew Markoff – Bronx
1 – Reid Ehrlich-Quinn – Damien

Social Pod:
8 – 3rd Kinkaid
11 – 2nd Westminster
11 – 1st GBS

Services Pod:
7 – Woodward
7 – St. Mark’s
8 – Carrollton
8 – 3rd Bronx
9 – 2nd Westlake
9 – 1st Damien

We’re enjoying a beautiful day in Dallas – warm and sunny! Round 1 started on time after a lovely breakfast. Now to the intel (remember, we will be updating the wiki throughout the day – click on “wiki” at the top of the page).

Round 1 Pairing – Social Pod
GBS TD Kinkaid BK Marks, Carver
Grapevine QS Westminster AT Crowe, Fiori
Highland Park PY Hooch CR Cholera, Querido
New Trier CS GBN MS Batterman, Levkovitz

Round 1 Pairing – Services Pod
Bronx EM Greenhill KP Abelkop, Munksgaard
St. Mark’s BM Woodward PP Kall, Greenstein
Westlake BM Damien EG Tate, Wisenhunt
Whitney Young GH Carrollton DG Manuel, Sykes

Round 2 Pairing – Social Pod
Hooch CR GBS TD Sabino, Cluff
GBN MS Highland Park PY Aitchison, ?
Kinkaid BK Grapevine QS Greenwalt, Levkovitz
Westminster AT New Trier CS Nishioka, Repko

Round 2 Pairing – Services Pod
Carrollton DG Bronx EM Hantel, Matheson
Damien EG Whitney Young GH Abelkop, Baker
Greenhill KB St. Mark’s BM Batterman, Peretz
Woodward PP Westlake BM Heidt, Smith(Ryan)

Affs So Far
New Trier – Head Start
Whitney Young – Clean Energy Service Corps
GBS – Food Stamps
Highland Park – School Lunches
St. Mark’s – Marriage Incentives
Westlake – Places a demand on the USFG to make welfare a universal right with NeoLib Bad
Grapevine – TANF hurts disabled people (plan removes work requirements I believe)
Bronx – Medical Marijuana for public housing

Hooch – removes same sex marriage restrictions on Medicaid
Westminster – public option for health care
Kinkaid – science education with warming and competitiveness
GBN – immigrant health care (Supreme Court – immigration status as condition for Medicaid is unconstitutional)
Woodward – abortion through the courts
Damien – have the NY district court remove restrictions on LSC
Greenhill – Endangered Species Act
Carrollton – legal aid for asylees

More to follow!
- Maggie

A big thank-you goes out to Mike Bietz, NDCA President, who set up the website and performed consistent and valuable troubleshooting. Also thanks to the NDCA board members who volunteered to upload workshop files throughout the summer.

Below are some helpful FAQs to help navigate your way through this.
website:

1 – How do I search for files?
One of the perks of our new system is the variety of ways that you can find files. You can just scroll through the posts (each file is uploaded as a “post”) and browse through files by workshop or by category. You can click on the category on the side of the screen to either view files by institute OR by argument category. For example, you can look at all of the counterplans generated by institutes by clicking on Policy-Counterplans. You can also just “search” for a file in the search toolbox at the top. For example, you could search for the biopower kritik by searching biopower OR searching Foucault.

2- Do I need a password?
Simply, no. To access a file, click on the file you want to view and then click the link for the file. The file will then download automatically.

3 – How do I know when new files are being posted since files will
be uploaded continually the next few weeks?
There are a few ways. First, the files are listed as “posts” with the most recent posts being shown on the Open Evidence Project homepage (debatecoaches.org/openevidence). Visiting the homepage each day will show you the latest posts.

You can also subscribe to RSS feeds and email alerts if you would like
to be notified when new files are posted.

4 – When I search for a file, it only shows one result, but I know that more than one workshop wrote the file. What gives?
You should see a link that says “Older Posts” above the search result. You can scroll through the “Older Posts” and find all of the results for that particular file. Remember you can also search by workshop for specific workshop files.

5 – How do I show my appreciation for this resource?

Attend one of the institutes that agreed to donate their files.

Become a member of the NDCA. As always, every resource that the NDCA provides is free of charge to the community. We run our projects on the good will of many in the community. However, if you find that our resources make an impact on your program, a simple $25.00 annual membership fee is a great way to continue the viability of this organization. You can register at debatecoaches.org…this is also a good reminder to renew for the 2009-2010 school year!

6 – I have questions. Who do I email?
Your first line of defense is Maggie Berthiaume at berthiaumem@fultonschools.org or Tracy McFarland at tmcfarland@jesuitschools.org. If one of us can’t answer your question, we will try to find someone that can.

This is by no means a comprehensive list – if you have other camps with good electronic lectures, notes or other information, please post that information in the comments!

The NDCA takes no responsibility for any offensive material posted on or contained within videos from 3rd party sites or cross-posted to the NDCA. Please peruse at your own risk.

- UC Berkeley – http://cndi.wikispaces.com/Lectures
- Dartmouth Debate Workshop – http://ddw09.wikispaces.com/Lectures (also available via podcast on iTunes)
- Emory National Debate Institute, hosted at – endi.gaforensics.org
- Georgetown Debate Scholars – http://georgetowndebateseminar.wikispaces.com/lectures
- Gonzaga Debate Institute, hosted at – http://www.planetdebate.com/media
- University of Kentucky Programs, hosted at – http://www.planetdebate.com/media

(via lifehacker)

The Texas Debate Collective (TDC) is a non-profit organization and student organization at the University of Texas at Austin. Created in 2009, the non-profit and student organizations were designed to improve the educational opportunities of low-income students in Texas. To that end, we are proud to announce the first annual TDC FREE summer debate institute. As long as our enrollment permits, we welcome any student who wants to attend—regardless of whether they can afford or do in fact attend other camps.

Our goals are two fold: first, to offer the benefits of an expensive, intellectually rigorous debate institute to students who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend. Second, we hope to undermine ongoing segregation between the three debate circuits in Texas, by fostering attitudes of mutual respect and friendship between students competing in UIL, TFA, and TOC tournaments.

You can find out more information at TexasDebateCollective.com

Steve Fetzik, the debate coach at St. Francis High School wrote:

The MSHSL just passed a resolution limiting travel to 600 miles round trip. The article I read only referenced sports, so we’ll have to wait for the official minutes to see if it applies to speech and debate (unless somebody knows something).

It is immediately followed by a student:

On Channel 9:

“Now, fully in the name of equality, it was brought up today the idea that if they’re going to limit sports trips out of state for practice or games, maybe they should be doing the same thing for fine arts. Meaning speech, debate and band. They brought it up today, but say they’re going to discuss it more fully come August.”

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/sports/Changes_to_HS_Sports_in_the_Name_of_Statewide_Fairness_june_08_2009

Given that equality seems to be the supposed argument here, I’ll try to address my feelings on the issue.

There are a number of states that restrict the travel of debate. Most notoriously, at least to Minnesotans, are the states of Kansas and maybe Missouri. I’m no expert. I just remember seeing those exotic Washburn Rural teams at the Mid-America Cup at West Des Moines Valley or at the Iowa Caucus. Anyhow, the great claim is that debate is vibrant in those areas because of their travel ban.

Anecdotally, the Missouri and Kansas make great examples for the pro-travel ban side. But has anyone ever done any real scientific research to prove this point. Every few years we get a handful of debaters at camp. For the most part they all talk about how they would love the opportunity to go to the tournaments other kids get to go to. As I have mentioned in previous articles – it is becoming much more difficult to contain or keep out influences on our debaters. With all of the online resources available, it is no longer possible to shelter debaters from what is happening in other debate circuits or the so-called national circuit. When I debated I didn’t even know there was a national circuit.

I didn’t know what the TOC was until I started coaching at Blake, my freshman year of college. Shortly after that Debate Central showed up on Gopher, LD-L showed up, and within 10 years you have kids from debaters from schools without traditional “coaches” succeeding, clearing and even winning the TOC. Certainly there is a logical leap in there somewhere. But I strongly believe that the “democratization” of debate and one that has given kids, kids who are really in love with the activity the ability to compete at the very highest levels is something that is great. Travel bans risks losing this. Kids who love soccer can join traveling teams. Love tennis? You can join a circuit. For those kids who want debate to be “their thing,” the ability to meet kids from all around the country with the same passion.

I still haven’t addressed the issue of equality. Believe me, my own political convictions certainly make me sympathetic to this issue, and I hope to address it. We need to save/preserve/grow local debate so students from all backgrounds have the opportunity to participate. I guess I don’t see the travel ban as a means of achieving this goal. If we are going try to make debate available to all, then lets do that without taking away or limiting those who want debate to be more than just club activity.

In my next post I’ll try to address some ways we can begin to save/preserve/grow local debate. For now, I am interested in hearing the arguments in favor of the travel bans/restrictions.