You and your students are cordially invited to attend the 41st Newman Invitational. We provide a unique and diverse competitive experience. Last year, we attracted over 70 schools from 12 different states. Join us this year for a wonderful celebration of 41 years of forensics excellence on our campus.

We are pleased to announce that we are a qualifying tournament for UK's TOC in all twelve events they host. Students advancing to the designated place will earn one bid to the 2020 National Tournament of Champions hosted by the University of Kentucky.

We plan to offer 6 preliminary rounds of debate in novice and varsity divisions of Policy, LD, and PF. We plan to offer 4 preliminary rounds of World Schools Debate. We also offer 2 three-hour preliminary sessions in Congress. Please be aware that elims in some of the debate events will carry over to Sunday except for Congress, which will have its final session on Saturday. Additionally, we offer 4 preliminary rounds in all Speech events; however, students will not be able to cross-enter debate and speech events. Speech competitors can enter up to 3 events within the speech category but no triple entry within a pattern. All speech events will conclude on Saturday with an awards program on Saturday night. Congress results will be announced at the speech awards ceremony.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT PF:  There will be no "coin flip" in preliminary rounds. The tabulation software determines sides, guaranteeing best possible balance between "pro" and "con" sides in the prelims. The pro side always speaks first. In the elims, the teams flip for sides (unless they met previously in the prelims), but the pro side still always speaks first. We will also adopt the new NSDA timing rules (added minute to the two summary speeches and added minute to prep time for each team).

We will tabulate all events on tabroom.com. All postings will be available online and emails/texts will be blasted for those that sign up for that service. For all events, ballots will be completed online. All judges must have a linked tabroom.com account and must bring devices with them to complete online ballots. Laptops and tablets work much better than smart phones.

Summary of events and TOC qualification status

*semis bid for the Silver division and finals bid for the Gold division

If you have any questions about the tournament, please do not hesitate to ask.

Thank you,

Greg Malis, Alma Nicholson, and Christopher Vincent
Tournament Directors