University Novice Tournament

Coaches and Students,

You are cordially invited to participate in the 2024 University HS Novice Tournament held in person on October 26th. We will also have an asynchronous Interp/Extemp option for all competitors, with recordings due by October 23rd. These will run as separate events from the in-person tournament. http://universitynovice.tabroom.com

Tournament Highlights:

-A chance for schools to get used to Tabroom/NSDA Classroom in a low-stress environment

-Asynchronous format to facilitate participation for all students in Interp

-In-person tournament for schools able to travel.

-Four preliminary rounds for a quick, easy day. All events will run at the same time.

-Up to eight rounds of competition and feedback.

Events: Students may double-enter by entering one in-person and any number of asynchronous events. (For example, you could sign up for in-person OO and asynchronous OO, or for in-person LD and async HI, async extemp)

Asynchronous Events (recorded before tournament day; judged Oct 23rd-26th)

For asynchronous events, each competitor must record their performance. Video recordings must be submitted by providing a URL link to the recording in Tabroom by Wednesday, October 23 at 6 pm.

• Async Extemporaneous Speaking--Topics released October 16th, students submit one video for all 4 rounds

In-Person Events (Held in person, Oct 26, at University Schools, Greeley CO)

• Cross-Examination (Policy) Debate (if enough teams sign up; please select backup) (Please provide 1

varsity judge per team entry)

Debate Resolutions:

LD: Resolved: The United States ought to require that workers receive a living wage

PF: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially expand its surveillance infrastructure along its southern border.

CX: Resolved: The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks.

Novice Case Limits for the 2024-2025 Policy Debate Topic

• Patents: emerging Technologies

• Patents: Green Technology

• Copyrights: Protect the Creative Arts

• Trademarks: trademark Trolls

Schedule: (MST) *If we have to double-flight debate, round 4 will be dropped to keep end time.

8:30am

Registration/Tech Check for judges. (Extra time has been allotted for dealing with tech problems and ensuring each round is ready to run.)

9-10:30am

Round 1

Entries: Each school may enter a maximum of 5 entries in each event. You may add additional entries to the waitlist and if room permits, I will add entries. Entries will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Entry Fees: Fees are 7.00 dollars per student, and 14.00 dollars for partnered events, based on the pre-registration numbers as of Wednesday, October 23rd.

Please make checks payable to University Schools. Mailing address 6525 W 18th Street, Greeley, CO 80634

Registration: Registration will be closed on Wednesday, October 23rd at 5 pm. For all entry changes after, simply email luribe@universityschools.com

Drops: Please use tabroom.com to submit drops by Friday, October 25th, 5 pm for no charge.

Student Judges: Each school is expected to provide 1 student judge per 5 interp/platform entries, and 1 student judge per 2 debate entries. They will NEED a device on the day of the tournament to judge.

**In Tabroom, please add your students as judges to be assigned via Tabroom. (After the novice season you can remove the students from your judges’ list.) Students will either be assigned an async round (videos they will watch on their computer) or an in-person round, for which they will travel to the room. Please make a note in Tabroom if a student is only able to do async ballots.

To develop and increase equity and diversity in our speech community, all coaches and student judges will be asked to fill out the judges’ diversity training before receiving ballots.

Important Reminders:

• Competition is open to 9-12 grade students in their first year of competition (novice) representing the school in which they are officially enrolled and doing so with the permission of their school administration and/or coaches..

• Students MUST have a Tabroom account for the tournament.

• Students/Coaches will upload speeches by Wednesday, October 23rd at 5 pm for recorded events.

• A coach must be present on site (reachable for their team via call or email).

Equity Statement:

University High School is passionately committed to fostering equity and inclusion within the Speech & Debate community. Please contact us if there are barriers to participating in our tournament (like the entry fees, being new to the activity/lack of familiarity). We will figure it out.

Our program is fortunate to have the support of our school community and the larger Colorado Speech & Debate community. This activity will never grow to encompass the full range of schools and students if proactive steps are not taken. Please read our full equity and inclusion statement, along with our action steps, further into this invitation.

University School is committed to further developing equity, diversity, and inclusion in this activity. To that end, we have tried to remove some of the economic barriers that prevent teams from competing at tournaments. Below are recent steps we have taken to increase access and affordability:

1. The University Novice Meet will not be charging any drop fee for first-year programs.

2. Any school with a Free or Reduced Lunch rate of 60% or more is entitled to a discount on their entry fees. Please email us directly to receive the discount.

In addition to working towards affordability, we want to create a competitive environment that welcomes all narratives and combats sexist, classist, and racist microaggressions that have resulted in varying student experiences in this activity. Below are recent steps we have taken to address inclusiveness:

1. A virtual anti-bias judge training is required for all judges before ballots are released to them.

We want to encourage coaches to be proactive in the event an inappropriate comment is made on the ballot that they believe was part of the judge’s decision. Being asynchronous helps facilitate rectifying this issue. Below are the steps we are committed to taking:

1. We will make ballots available to coaches regularly. We want to encourage coaches to review ballots and notify the tournament directors of any problematic ballots.

2. If a problematic ballot is discovered in rounds, an additional judge will adjudicate the async round. If the judge’s rank would have resulted in that student's higher rank, they will receive the higher rank. (This may result in two 1st or 2nd place awards; we are fine with that). In our rounds, only the student whose ballot was challenged will have the potential to receive a different rank.

Finally, we realize these steps that we have committed to are only part of a larger conversation on the issues of equity and diversity in our activity. Any suggested updates to our equity statement are welcome to be shared.

Questions and Concerns: Please feel free to contact Louis Uribe at University High School, at 307-214-5914 (cell), or luribe@univeristyschools.com