April 13-14 2024 CARD Tournament and Conference of Scholars

February 1, 2024

Dear colleagues and friends,

We would like to cordially invite you to the 2024 CARD Tournament and Conference of Scholars, hosted by Western Washington University. Please join us in Bellingham, Washington for a weekend of exploring the topic of nuclear weapons policy, undergraduate research presentations, and a celebration of the 2023-2024 debate season.

This invite contains the key parameters for our schedule, the cost of the event, and how to register/submit materials. More specific details will be provided to registered participants as the event draws closer, but we wanted to highlight the unique elements of our event and the key “need-to-knows” in this invite.

Mode: This is an in-person event that will accommodate online-participation for judges, students, and guests who cannot join in Bellingham.

Tournament + Conference: This is a debate tournament and undergraduate research conference with 4 rounds of competition and 1 round of presentations where students can either share their own work or serve as audience members for panelists, including opportunities for Q&A

Conference Submissions- Accessible + Creative.Debaters are strongly encouraged to submit proposals (or even small research papers) for inclusion in the conference by April 5, 2024. Students could consider presenting research they have prepared for debate rounds (such as an affirmative case, or a set of negative “off-case” positions). We also welcome creative, original, and artistic work.

Awards: The event will conclude with an award ceremony that recognizes student performance in debate and awards for creative and engaging research. To encourage students to pursue both debating and sharing their work for different audiences, the top junior and senior division undergraduates who participate in both debates and conference presentations will receive a cash prize (funded personally by some of our directors and coaches).

Fees:Fees will be charged to schools participating in the debate tournament to offset the costs of tabulation and contribute towards event costs, including catered food both days. Students participating only in the research conference will not be charged a fee, but must register ahead of time at

https://forms.gle/7gMSJqYiz4CRsyCu8

COVID: All participants are considered guests of WWU and must comply with the university’s established COVID and public health policies during the event. Currently, the campus does not require that visitors are vaccinated, and the wearing of masks is optional. We ask that you abide by the CDC’s guidelines for isolation or quarantine if you are experiencing COVID-like symptoms or have tested positive.

If there are questions, do not hesitate to contact event organizer Dr. Travis Cram at Travis.Cram@wwu.edu.

Best wishes from the Western Debate Union and Oregon Forensics,

Travis Cram (DoF, WWU) Korry Harvey (ADoF, WWU)

Carter Henman (Assistant, WWU)

Tournament and Conference Registration

Tournament entries: Debate programs can register for the tournament on Tabroom.com at the following link:

http://cardtacos.tabroom.com

Deadline- initial entries and party size: April 1, 2024, 5 pm PST.

Deadline- judging and entry adjustments (fees locked): April 10, 2022, 5pm PST.

Schedule for tournament fees:

School registration fee $55

Debate team fee $90

Uncovered judging fee $200

Fees can be paid via credit card at:

https://commerce.cashnet.com/WWU_DebateX

Conference Individual Submission and Registration: Program directors are responsible for directing their participating undergraduate students to submit their individual research via Google Form. The form outlines the specific parameters for research submissions.

Submission Form:

https://forms.gle/7gMSJqYiz4CRsyCu8

Submission deadline: April 5, 2024, 5pm PST.

Conference Theme: We will include any student presentation that is connected to the broader topic of nuclear weapons. It is not solely limited to the context of the United States, or formal questions of policy. We are especially interested in submissions that respond to the conference theme: What is the relevance of nuclear deterrence for democratic life in the 21st century? Since their inception, nuclear weapons (and the technology to deliver them) have evolved rapidly. The role that they play in the grand strategy of nuclear weapons states has also shifted along with changes to the global balance of power. Since the United States’ nuclear monopoly ended in 1949, nuclear weapons have had one enduring feature: preventing nuclear use by threatening nuclear use. CARD strives to develop student skills in practicing democratic citizenship. This year’s topic demands that students evaluate the implications of achieving security through threatening widespread destruction and death through nuclear use.

Submission Parameters: We aim to encourage diversity and creativity in approaches, as scholarship comes in a variety of forms. Submissions should adhere to one of the following options (let your students know they can propose a short essay under option B if they are not ready to submit by the deadline):

A. Short Research essay: A brief essay (7-10 double-spaced pages) that responds to the topic prompt in some manner (arguments in favor, arguments against, critical analysis of assumptions or gaps in the topic prompt, etc.). Students could consider converting debate speech materials into written materials as one example of this work. Essays should be double spaced with 12 point font and 1 inch margins, include a sources cited page and use any recognized academic formatting style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). With the author's permission, these essays will be published online as a digital collection.

B. Creative research proposal: A short (1-2 double-spaced pages) proposal for original student work that engages in original, creative, performance and/or artistic methods of analysis of the topic prompt in some manner (for example, presenting original photographic work, a spoken-word testimonial, a research poster, etc.). The proposal submission should include a description of the project, its significance, and your plan for presenting the work in an 8-minute period at the conference.

Tentative Event Schedule

Relevant Campus Details

Campus Location and Parking: We are an active construction zone right now. These details will be provided as we move closer to the event.

Wireless Access:Guests will either able to join the established Guest Network, or will be provided temporary access passes.

Campus common sense: Please communicate two important things to your participants: First, don’t touch technology or move anything in the classrooms other than seats. That includes unplugging things. Second, students, coaches, and judges need to constantly police each other in keeping campus clean! Make sure trash goes in trash cans, and recyclables and compostables go to their correct bins. Classroom seats should be placed back as they were found and all trash removed after each competition. We regard our participants as some of the finest students on campus, and that should also show up in how little work we create for custodial crews. Additionally, WWU Debate will be on the hook for thousands of dollars in custodial cleaning if we cannot abide by pretty basic common sense.

Lodging options:There will not be a central tournament hotel. There are a number of hotels within a 5-15 minute drive of campus. If this is your first time to Bellingham for the competition and you would like recommendations (or warnings of places to stay away from), contact us directly.

Campus Maps and Directions to Campus: We’d guess most of you will simply consult your GPS.

Debate Tournament Format and Details

Debate Tournament Event Description:

Collegiate Advocacy Research & Debate (CARD) uses a format that seeks to produce a student-centered debate experience that is rooted in evidence and rigor and yet accessible and realistic for students with increasing demands on their time, resources, and attention. There are four major goals the format hopes to achieve. First, it seeks to immerse students in scholarly literature related to pressing social and political controversies. Second, it seeks to develop student skill in building, testing, and critiquing arguments synthesized from that literature and honing their ability to do so in front of a diversity of educated audiences. Third, it seeks to develop skills related to critical and strategic thinking. Finally, the format emphasizes the educational and social benefits of forensics through community-building and a deemphasis on some traditional facets of tournament debating.

The event utilizes a collectively sourced article library of scholarship that has been cultivated by participating students and coaches, traditional policy debate speech sequences with shorter times, and a communicatively centered theory of argumentation to guide debates. A full description of the event and its theoretical norms are locatedhere. It is worth nothing that the norms described therein are not intended as a set of exhaustive rules that speak to what students may or may not do, but rather a set of aspirational norms that reflect the goals of the activity.

Resolution:

The CARD 2023-2024 resolution focuses on the issue of United States nuclear weapons policy. The Viking Classic will use the most recent topic and library at the time of the event, published athttps://www.westerndebateunion.org/topics

Article Library Details & Guidelines:

CARD debates utilize a collectively built community library as the sole sources of quotable evidence. The library, including links to full-text articles, can be located at: https://www.westerndebateunion.org/cardlibrary

Participants can utilize any portion of any article listed in the established article library.

Tournament Awards:

The tournament will use the established system of recognizing student achievement in the areas of evidence, analysis, communication, and community-building. This process is described here:https://www.westerndebateunion.org/student-success

Conference presentations willalso be assessed in these areas and included in the final tabulation of scores and determining awards to be presented at the end of the event.

In addition, there will be awards offered for special distinction by the tournament’s top achieving teams, and for particularly creative and innovative research submissions.