Hello all--Since the topic meeting and my rather poor behavior in lashing out
to any criticisms of the slate of topics wecreated at the meeting, I have laid
very low this summer. I have wanted to engage some of this EDEBATE
discussionbut I fear that my response up to this point would only provoke the
childish and angry tone that flared in the wake of the topic meeting. I won't
replicate that behavior here.However, I highly appreciate Ede's approach to
this discussion and want to add a few reactions to Ede's questions becausethey
speak to a host of issues that I have discussed for a few years and are very
important to me. Warning: As per usual withme, this is lengthy....I have one
question for the membership...Are you willing to disclose > where you stand on
the organizational question of whether you feel CEDA > and NDT should have the
same mission?The Short: We should have a clearly defined grand mission that
governs our style(s) of team debate. We lack this missionnow because we have 3
organizations (NDT, CEDA and AFA) that have separate missions and attempt to
duplicate each otherwithout organizational division of duties to make it clear
what organization should be responsible for what parts of that mission. For 10
years we have just maintained separate organizations that duplicate everything.
We need a grand missionoverall and structure our organizations to ensure that
this mission is being fulfilled. I have for years argued that since the
introduction of a common topic there has never been a "merger" where
CEDA/NDT/AFA have really sought to distinguish themselves in terms of
purpose/mission. I've never been convinced that it's necessary to have two
governing associations that essential do the same thing--manage national point
standings, host national tournament, create eligibility rules, etc. Outside of
a few different awards and some different mentioningstrategies, the two
organizations functionally do the exact same thing and adopt generally the same
rules. I would support a reasonable proposal to have some change in
organizational purpose and structure between these organizationsIF the goal was
to create some organizational clarity and use the organizations to promote the
multiple goals that weall seek. I don't really have a vision of what this
division of ground would exactly look like, but I have always feltthat in terms
of tracking national standings and hosting a select national tournament, the
NDT is organizationally bestprepare to do this. Also, the AFA seems best suited
to sponsor the various academic and tenure issues for both organizations.For
me, even as a competitor in the organization, CEDA traditionally has a better
organizational structure to help promote regional debate, mentor new programs
and coaches and to host a national novice, JV and an open-invitational
nationalopen tournament. The problem in terms of organizational structures and
purposes, we have 3 organizations that overlaps entirely too muchin all of
these areas so that it maintains the old AFA/NDT vs CEDA structure. I would
like to see changes that eliminatethe possibility that we could ever have the
lengthy debate like we've witnessed on EDEBATE where people could even
considerreturning to a division between CEDA and NDT. And I don't mean to argue
that the debate that has occurred hasn't had value,but we should have
organizational structure that is more unified as a whole in terms of
educational and competitive purposewith subunits (i.e., the specific
organizations--AFA, NDT and CEDA) that are defined to achieve those goals
without fumbling over each other to duplicate those efforts.And given some of
the larger pressing issues that seem to be confronting us--rekindling strong
regional debate and tournaments,promoting novice and JV debate, inclusion
etc--we simply don't have the resources or time in any one organization to
tacklethese issues effectively if we continue to try to have 3 organizations
attempt to deal with them in redundant and sometimesconflicting ways. I'll give
2 short examples. One would be publications. We simply lack enough productive
researchers to haveboth CAD and Arg & Advocacy if both journals' goals are the
same. I know from talking to several people that we don't have nearlyenough
submissions to either journal and yet forensics researchers complain that
there's no real avenue for their researchinterests.Second, the entire structure
of CEDA regional reps, NDT District Chairs and AFA Regional Reps. Half of the
time I'm unclearas to who these people exactly are in my region, but more
importantly, I really don't know what they are supposed to doand what issues I
should raise with each person. Currently, I know the NDT chair is my rep at NDT
meetings and overseesthe district tournament. The CEDA rep handles some end of
the year votes and I still dont know what an AFA regional repdoes. This is not
a criticism of any person that has served in those positions in my region.
Instead, I just don't see any overarching mission that assists us in defining
what these individuals should be doing to help us in the region.In terms of
four ideas that Ede has summarized...> > I have one additional question for
the my administration which would > include my executive council...There are
four ideas discussed so far:> 1) CEDA and NDT keep things as they are As I
already discussed, we should not continue with the let's have 3 organizations
that hold their breathe in hopesthat we won't redivide into AFA/NDT vs. CEDA.
As long as we maintain completely separate organizations with
overlappingmissions and functions, we keep that an open possibility. For all
this talk about "the effects of the merger," I thinkit's total nonsense. We
never had a merger. We only share a common topic and continue to modify rules
and procedures withouta thought as to how this organize all of this in 10
years. The majority of issues that have been raised as concerns over the last
several years have actually been attempted to be addressed by both
organizations, but rather poorly because each organization lacks the manpower,
resources and time to address them all independent. Before we have a flood of
studiesand arguments about the effects of a merger, let's have an actual merger
first and figure out what we want, what we want to do,and what we want each
organization serving a larger educational purpose to do.> 2) CEDA go back to 2
topics per year, one being non-policy (Elliott);> 3) Having a simultaneous
policy and non-policy resolution that the > affirmative can chose each debate
(Korcok); or> 4) Support for different but related topics between CEDA (broad
or more > flexibility) and NDT (narrow or less flexibility) (Warner)?I'm still
not compelled by any of the arguments raised by a variety of people that topic
size, wording or anything elseconnected to the topic of discussion impacts the
variety of problems that we face. I debated and coached novices throughvarsity
teams on non-policy topics and hated every minute of it. To me, the problem was
that outside of the purpose of havinga criteria, there was no strong underlying
theoretical basis for arguments in a non-policy framework. Arguments like
topicality,counterplans, offcase made such little sense when the aff isn't
expected to defend a specific policy. Try to coach studentsstrategy on these
topics was never enjoyable and students were often frustrated by the complete
lack of predictability, crazyaff weaseling out of arguments and unclear
theoretical basis for arguments.I also never liked a 2 topics per year
framework. I concede that Elliot is correct that 2resolutions per year add some
variety and ensure that certain topics do not become stale quickly, but the
flip side is that debates are also often highly underdeveloped, particularly in
the 2nd semester where the only prep for the topic is duringthe holiday break.
For some reason in my years as a CEDA debater, we have AWFUL topics first
semester, but I had more time to learn about them and develop smart strategies.
Then 2nd semester would feature a broad and very interesting topic that my
squadwould never be fully prepared for even by nationals. Large squads would
destroy us in that semester.Ede's idea has some appeal to me, but I fear some
of the potential outcomes. In this world, we still have tournaments offering
different resolutionsor different divisions using different resolutions,
meaning that directors will make choices about what tournaments they
wouldattend. As a host, I already feel tremendous pressure about things like
ADA-sanctioning, location in schedule, etc. to determinemy tournament draw. I
would hate to have to then decide what kind of resolution we would offer if
that mad us less or more appealingthan another tournament on or near our
tournament.Additionally, having 2 simultaneous resolutions perhaps doesnt best
serve all populations. In my experience, I prefer narrowresolutions
particularly for novice and young JV debaters. Yes, the wording of these
resolutions may not be ideal or pretty,but I have yet to have a student say
that they care at all about the specific wording. Novices seem to care about
the generaltopic area and then want to know how to debate specific areas. The
predictability of a smaller resolution helps them bestprepare and also helps
their success rate. Yet, for some advanced JV and Varsity debaters, their needs
are best served sometimesby broader topics and smaller topics. Seems like a
truly organizational nightmare to decide who attends what tournaments
ordivisions and how to pair these students based on 2 simultaneous
resolutions.As for Korcok's idea, this has some appeal to me simply because it
resolves a few of the administrative problems for me withEde's idea. However, I
think it also adds some additional problems for me. Just with novice and young
JV students, I haveway too much work trying to prepare these students to learn
either policy debate or non-policy debate theory and arguments. Having to coach
them both to students on top of the specific issues related to the resolution
would be a nightmare. I knowthat the romantic view of non-policy debate is that
it is inherently easier because there are fewer theoretical issues to train,
but that was never the actuality in CEDA non-policy debate. To coach why Hasty
Generalizations, parametics, criteria etc. mattermatter and how to debate team
always took a ton of work to prepare young students for. Add to that then
CPlan, Kritik, policy-relatedtopicality etc. and it's overwhelming. if it was
clear that a certain division of competition would feature this style of
debate,then perhaps it would be much easier to deal with.My ideal solution,
outside of the merger stuff above, would be to find a better middle ground in
topic construction. While I wasa pretty fierce defender of the slate of
resolutions we created this summer, with time, I have become more than a little
disappointed by what we created. But I also don't exactly know what we could
have done differently. I just dont think having wide open resolutions like "the
USFG should significantly increase its CE with the Middle East" makes for good
debate for novices or younger students. I alsodon't think topics like Europe or
Treaties that spell out the exactly plan text are good either. The topic
committee this year and probablyin the past has focused on finding stable
mechanisms as a way to create some medium, but that then generates the wording
awkwardness thatwe are experiencing this year. As the discussion at this year's
topic committee indicated, we have worked for too longwith a primary concern
for neg flexibility. This year we thought we created resolutions that gave some
choices to swingthe direction the other way. That was our hope and it may not
be realized. But I also think it's the first time aff flexibilityhas been the
driving directive of the committee. It doesn't seem productive to hamstring the
topic committee that theycan ONLY write certain kinds of topics, but instead,
perhaps expect some broadening of the topic along with narrower options andlet
the voting community decide.I'm not sure why the best options have to tinker
with the length the topic is used or having different kinds of propositions
(policy, non-policy).Can't we work to broaden the resolution some and if people
choose, have subset topics for specific divisions or tournaments? I was never
awarewhy following the exactly wording of a resolution mattered in terms of
national point consideration. Perhaps that is a bylaw that should betinkered
with. But again, even with any topic change, I remain unconvinced that any of
the currently suggested solutionstruly address declines in novice debate,
regional debate, resource disparities, etc. Those are much broader
organizational issues thatwe have tried to address, but without much success
within our divided but let's act like we've merged structural arrangement.
Kelly Kelly M. Young, Ph.D.
Director of Forensics/
Assistant Professor
Communication Department
Wayne State University
585 Manoogian Hall
Detroit, MI 48201
(313) 577-2953
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