Season Archive

The George R. Brown Forensics Society, Rice’s competitive intercollegiate speech and debate team, has been hard at work representing Rice with distinction. The first month of the Spring semester has been very successful for the team. Results are listed below. Please congratulate these academic competitors.

RICE DEBATERS TAKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN 3 DIVISIONS!

Rice brings home debate national championship and positions itself to bring home one in speech as well.

The virtual speech and debate season is coming to a dramatic climax for Rice as the team works its way through nationals season, a time of year loosely analogous to March Madness, with the interesting difference is that there is more than one way to win in speech and debate. It’s as if a basketball team could win both the NCAA and NIT championships, for example.

So far Rice has brought home one national championship and hopes to bring home more. Here are the results so far.

National Parliamentary Debate Association 2021 Championship Tournament, March 6-8, 2021

This tournament features highly competitive teams from around the nation. Rice has a long history with this event, missing only twice in history. The tournament features 8 preliminary debates and multiple elimination rounds. As a squad, Rice placed first at this tournament, and Rice debaters Amy Lin and Joel Abraham reached the final round, taking second in the nation and the squad won overall sweepstakes for the tournament.

The organization also awards season sweepstakes in several categories. These are a measure of team success over the entire season. The squad placed first Overall and Varsity season sweepstakes.

Results:

Overall Season Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Open (Varsity) Division Season Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Overall Tournament Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Seniors Amy Lin and Joel Abraham are runner-up national champions, taking 2nd place after an outstanding final round appearance.
Seniors Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell reached Quarterfinals.
Junior Kia Witt and first-year student Max Renteria reached Double-Octafinals.

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:

Annie Chen: 4^th Speaker
Amy Lin: 5^th Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 9^th Speaker
Joel Abraham: 12^th Speaker

Maddy Scannell and Amy Lin were selected for the NPDA All-American Squad, recognizing their commitment to community service, academic excellence, and competitive success.

The tournament also brought to a close coach David Worth’s term as President of the organization. This finishes a 6-year run for Worth as an officer in the organization, first as National Tournament Director for two years, then as Vice-president for two years, and finally as President for two years.

Coach Shannon LaBove continues in her service as Treasurer of NPDA.

National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence, March 12-14, 2021

Rice debaters competed in the second half of the traditional debate nationals run, the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence. Qualification for this tournament is based on competitive success in the regular season. Going into the tournament, Rice had the number one ranked team of Chen and Scannell, number 4 ranked Lin and Abraham, number 8 ranked Kritika Shamanna and Jacob Tate, automatically qualifying them for the tournament. Witt and Renteria qualified as well as an at-large bid, giving Rice its largest ever entry for this event.

This tournament features the top 24 ranked teams in the nation in debates with 2-7 judges in each round. It measures preliminary rounds by ballot count totals and elimination rounds are double-elimination. Teams are given a final ordinal ranking in the tournament.

Results:

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Elimination Round 6 (analogous to semi-finals), 3^rd Place Overall
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Elimination 3 (top 6), 9^th Place Overall
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Elimination 4 (analogous to quarterfinals), 6^th Place Overall
Kia Witt and Max Renteria debated very well, earning 5 ballots and narrowly missing the break by a few points.

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:

Amy Lin: 2^nd Speaker
Annie Chen: 5^th Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 6^th Speaker
Joel Abraham: 8^th Speaker

These incredible results cap off amazing debate careers for seniors Abraham, Chen, Lin, and Scannell. They have shown true commitment to enhancing their undergraduate education through debate and representing Rice with supreme excellence. They will be greatly missed.

The seniors leave juniors Shamanna, Tate, and Witt and first-year Renteria to carry on the legacy. As these results show, that tradition is in excellent hands!

Looking Forward to Speech Nationals

The team now turns its attention to the nationals run for speech events, comprised for Rice of four tournaments, Pi Kappa Delta, the National Speech Tournament, and the National Forensic Association National Tournament. These championships feature differing qualification and entry conditions, distinct competitive contexts, and varying challenges.

Rice also has one of Texas’ two entries to the Interstate Oratorical Contest, the nation’s oldest speaking contest focusing on persuasive speaking. Lauren Palladino will represent Rice at this prestigious event after the nationals run is complete.

Rice has entries to each of these upcoming tournaments that are truly historic. Rice speakers have overcome tremendous technical challenges during this virtual season and are positioned very well to bring home a national championship.

Stay tuned for more good news as we progress through nationals season!

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove.

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Rice Speech and Debate Brings Home 54 Awards by March 1, Prepares for Nationals Run!

The Rice Speech and Debate team has been hard at work representing Rice with rhetorical excellence! Rice competitors are thriving in this season’s unusual virtual environment. Results from multiple events are listed below:

Mile High Swing 2021

Part 1 January 14-15

20 teams from 10 Schools

Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Semifinalists, Varsity Debate
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate
Kia Witt and Joel Abraham: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:
Annie Chen: 2^nd
Joel Abraham: 3^rd
Kia Witt: 7^th
Maddy Scannell: 8^th

Rice won 12 separate debates overall.

Part 2 January 15-16: 22 teams from 13 schools
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Octafinalists, Varsity Debate

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:
Annie Chen: 9
Maddy Scannell: 2

Rice won 9 separate debates overall.

Overall Swing Speaker Awards (combined two-tournament totals)

Maddy Scannell: 2

Annie Chen: 3

Concordia University Irvine

January 22-23

21 teams from 17 schools

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate

Rice won 5 separate debates overall.

Texas Intercollegiate Forensic Association Spring Championship

February 6-7

Sweepstakes

14 Schools, 109 Entries

First Tournament:
Lauren Palladino: 1^st Place Persuasive Speaking
Mehek Jain: 5^th Place Extemporaneous Speaking

National Warmup 2021

February 13-14

21 Teams from 8 schools

Sweepstakes: 1^st Place
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: 2^nd Place, Varsity Debate
Jacob Tate (debating alone as a maverick): Semifinals, Varsity Debate
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:
Jacob Tate 1^st
Maddy Scannell 4^th
Annie Chen 6^th
Joel Abraham 13^th
Amy Lin: 14^th

Overall Rice won 17 separate debates

National Round Robin

February 20-21

11 teams from 5 schools

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Finished 2^nd Place. Only dropped 3 ballots in 4 elimination rounds (12 ballots total)

Overall Speaker Awards:

Amy Lin: 3^rd Speaker
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: 5-5

Virginia Swing

February 13-14

First Tournament: 10 Schools, 107 entries
4^th Place Tournament Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Communication Analysis

Taylor Gilliam:
1^st Place After Dinner Speaking

Mehek Jain:
2^nd Place Extemporaneous Speaking

Second Tournament: 7 schools, 46 Entries
5^th Place Sweepstakes

Taylor Gilliam:
1^st Place After Dinner Speaking

February 20-21: University of Illinois
Lauren 1^st Place Informative Speaking

Battle of Flowers

February 26

Held every year since 1926, this prestigious and unique event is the oldest speaking contest in Texas. It features persuasive speaking on historical topics related to the state Texas. This year Rice did very well this year, as the contest held its first virtual version:

Bria Murray: 2^nd Place
Cole Lambo: 3^rd Place

Speech on the Beach

February 26-28

First Tournament:
4th Place Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Informative Speaking
2^nd Place Communication Analysis
4^th Place After Dinner Speaking

Mehek Jain:
3^rd Place Communication Analysis

Jazmine Castillo:
5^th Place Prose Interpretation
5^th Place Dramatic Interpretation

Taylor Gilliam:
2^nd Place Poetry Interpretation

Tiffany Sloan:
2^nd Place Programmed Oral Interpretation

Tiffany Sloan and Taylor Gilliam:
5^th Place Dou Interpretation

Second Tournament:
2^nd Place Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Communication Analysis
3^rd Place After Dinner Speaking

Mehek Jain:
2^nd Place Communication Analysis

Jazmine Castillo:
3^rd Place Dramatic Interpretation
3^rd Place Prose Interpretation

Tiffany Sloan and Taylor Gilliam:
2^nd Place Duo Interpretation

Taylor Gilliam:
2^nd Place Poetry Interpretation

Tiffany Sloan:
1^st Place Programmed Oral Interpretation

This outstanding start sets up Rice for a district tournament and several national tournaments that will cap the year, Including the National Parliamentary Debate Association National Championship, the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence, The National Speech Tournament, and the National Forensic Association National Tournament. Hopefully, Rice Speech and Debate will have more exciting news to report soon!

Please join us in congratulating these amazing academic competitors!

The team is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove.

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Rice Speech and Debate Caps Off October with 17 Awards!

Rice speech and debate competitors continue their tradition of success despite the pandemic. In the last two weekends of October, Rice competed in two virtual events on opposite ends of the country, bringing home 17 well-deserved awards.

SNAFU#2

This virtual speech event was hosted by the Southern and Northern Atlantic Forensics Union and Seton Hall University and featured 124 speech event entries from 24 colleges and universities in two complete tournaments. Rice competitors did very well with a small but focused entry. Rice brought home 8 awards.

First Tournament 10/24/2020

1^st Place Limited Entry (Efficiency) Sweepstakes
Coleman Lambo: 2^nd Place Extemporaneous Speaking
Alonso Medina: 2^nd Place Informative Speaking
Tiffany Sloan 3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation

Second Tournament 10/25/20
3rd Place Limited Entry (Efficiency) Sweepstakes
Coleman Lambo: 1^st Place Extemporaneous Speaking
Tiffany Sloan; 3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation
Alonso Medina: 5^th Place Informative Speaking

Golden Gate Invitational 10/31-11/1/2020

This virtual debate tournament was hosted by The University of California, Berkeley and featured 36 debate entries from 21 colleges and universities. Rice competitors had an excellent outing, winning 1^st Place in Sweepstakes, closing out one side of the semifinals bracket and taking home four of the top ten speaker awards. Rice brought home 9 awards.

Team Sweepstakes: 1^st Place
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: 2^nd Place, Varsity Parliamentary Debate
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Semifinalists/tie for 3^rd Place with Shamanna and Tate Varsity Parliamentary Debate
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Semifinalists/tie for 3^rd Place with Lin and Abraham, Varsity Parliamentary Debate
Alina Zhu and Kia Witt: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Parliamentary Debate

Speaker Awards
Annie Chen: 1^st Place Overall Debate Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 4^th Overall Debate Speaker
Amy Lin: 9^th Overall Debate Speaker
Krithika Shamanna: 10^th Overall Debate Speaker

These awards are the result of many hours of hard work in preparation and practice. Please join us in congratulating these outstanding academic competitors!

The team has two more tournaments before concluding competition for the semester, so be on the lookout for additional news.

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit https://humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate .

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Rice Speech and Debate Innovates Virtual Competition, Continues Winning Tradition

Rice Speech and Debate has begun their 2020-21 virtual season. The team has joined with other programs around the nation in refusing to let the pandemic prevent them from honing their rhetorical skills, speaking truth to power, and enjoying the fellowship of competition. Competing virtually requires new technical knowledge and abilities as well as studying and learning the varying dynamics of mediated rhetoric. Rice’s team has taken up the challenge of thinking, arguing, and speaking in new ways.

The team started its season by winning 19 awards in three competition events, including one hosted by Rice.

Rice & Friends Parliamentary Debate Season Opener

Rice hosted one of the first virtual tournaments of the collegiate season last weekend, September 26-27. The event was only the second in the format to be completely virtual. This is the traditional weekend for the Rice University Classic, an in-person speech and debate tournament hosted on campus. The impossibility of travel during COVID-19 pandemic has forced intercollegiate speech and debate to adapt.

The Rice & Friends Parliamentary Debate Season Opener was a cooperative test run for the intercollegiate debate community. The College of Idaho and the University of Texas at Tyler acted as co-hosts for the event, helping to divide the labor necessary to convert a rhetorical activity that normally depends on in-person presence into a synchronous event held entirely online. The tournament had 47 teams (94 students) and 37 judges entered from 19 colleges and universities. Rice will host a similar event featuring a speech tournament in the spring semester.

Rice won 10 awards.

Debate Awards:

Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Tournament Champions—1^st Place

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Semifinalists—tie for 3^rd Place with Shamanna and Tate

Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Semifinalists—tie for 3^rd Place with Lin and Abraham

Kia Witt and Alina Zhu: double-octofinalists

Rice closed out one half of the semifinal bracket and had a team in the other bracket, meaning that of the top four teams in this difficult tournament, three were from Rice.

Overall Rice won 28 separate debates

Rice took home 50% of the top ten Overall Debate Speaker Awards:

Maddy Scannell: 1^st Place--Top Overall Debate Speaker

Amy Lin: 3^rd Place Overall Debate Speaker

Annie Chen: 4^th Place Overall Debate Speaker

Krithika Shamanna: 7^th Place Overall Debate Speaker

Alina Zhu: 8^th Place Overall Debate Speaker

Joel Abraham: 12^th Place Overall Debate Speaker

Hill Country Swing

Rice competed in the Hill Country Swing hosted by the University of Texas at Austin and Texas State University during the previous weekend, September 19-20. This synchronous speech tournament was held entirely online with all students competing remotely. This tournament featured 232 entries from colleges and universities competing over two tournaments. This event is normally in-person and attracts the most competitive speakers in the nation. Rice won 8 awards in this difficult tournament.

First Tournament

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Extemporaneous Speaking

Tiffany Sloan:
3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation

Coleman Lambo:
4^th Place Extemporaneous Speaking

Second Tournament

Lauren Palladino:
Top Overall Speaker Tournament Sweepstakes Champion

1^st Place Extemporaneous Speaking

2^nd Place Impromptu Speaking

Tiffany Sloan:
3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation

Coleman Lambo:
6^th Place Extemporaneous Speaking

Competing Asynchronously

Rice also competed in the WKU Fall Tournament asynchronous speech tournament during the September 26-27 weekend. This innovative format featured recorded video submissions.

Tiffany Sloan: 4^th Place Poetry Interpretation

Please join us in congratulating these outstanding academic competitors who have represented Rice with such excellence!

Rice Speech and Debate will be competing in several virtual events over the course of the semester, so stay tuned for more news.

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit https://humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate .

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Rice Speech and Debate Virtually Wins Across the Nation

Rice Speech and Debate had a very successful weekend, competing in three virtual events ranging from the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. to Mid-America to the Mid-Atlantic. While the pandemic has challenged intercollegiate speech and debate by preventing in-person competition, it has also enabled the team to represent Rice with academic excellence from coast to coast and bring home 14 awards in one weekend.

Lewis & Clark College 10/10-11

This was the largest tournament of the virtual season so far, drawing 70 schools, 40 JV and Varsity debate teams in the Parliamentary division, and with approximately 300 debate entries across 10 divisions and 345 individual event entries. Rice debaters “closed out” the final round, meaning that only Rice teams were left in the top two spots in the tournament!

Rice brought home 7 hard-earned awards from this challenging field.

Overall Debate Sweepstakes: 3^rd Place
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Tie for 1^st Place Tournament Champions Varsity Parliamentary Debate (with Chen and Scannell).
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Tie for 1^st Place Tournament Champions Varsity Parliamentary Debate (with Lin and Abraham).
Alina Zhu and Jacob Tate: Octo-finalists, Varsity Parliamentary Debate
Amy Lin: 2^nd Overall Varsity Parliamentary Debate Speaker
Joel Abraham: 5^th Overall Varsity Parliamentary Debate Speaker
Jacob Tate: 10^th Overall Varsity Parliamentary Debate Speaker

Overall Rice won 18 separate debates

Southern and Northern Atlantic Forensic Union Season Opener 10/11

This virtual tournament was co-hosted by multiple schools in the Mid-Atlantic region and drew 19 schools with 163 individual event entries. Rice brought home 4 awards, 3 of which were 1^st Place.

Team Awards: 1^st Place Tournament Champions Limited Entry Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Extemporaneous Speaking
1^st Place Impromptu Speaking

Taylor Gilliam:
2^nd Place Programmed Oral Interpretation

Forensic Flyover Tournament 10/10

This virtual tournament was co-hosted by multiple schools in the Mid-America region and drew 83 individual event entries from 16 schools. Rice brought home 4 awards.

Tiffany Sloan:
1^st Place Prose Interpretation
2^nd Place Poetry Interpretation

Taylor Gilliam:
1^st Place Programmed Oral Interpretation

Mehek Jain:
6^th Place Extemporaneous Speaking

Please join us in congratulating these outstanding academic competitors who have represented Rice with such excellence!

Rice Speech and Debate will be competing in multiple virtual events over the course of the semester, so stay tuned for more news.

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit https://humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate .

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RICE DEBATERS TAKE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN 3 DIVISIONS!

Rice brings home debate national championship and positions itself to bring home one in speech as well.

The virtual speech and debate season is coming to a dramatic climax for Rice as the team works its way through nationals season, a time of year loosely analogous to March Madness, with the interesting difference is that there is more than one way to win in speech and debate. It’s as if a basketball team could win both the NCAA and NIT championships, for example.

So far Rice has brought home one national championship and hopes to bring home more. Here are the results so far.

National Parliamentary Debate Association 2021 Championship Tournament, March 6-8, 2021

This tournament features highly competitive teams from around the nation. Rice has a long history with this event, missing only twice in history. The tournament features 8 preliminary debates and multiple elimination rounds. As a squad, Rice placed first at this tournament, and Rice debaters Amy Lin and Joel Abraham reached the final round, taking second in the nation and the squad won overall sweepstakes for the tournament.

The organization also awards season sweepstakes in several categories. These are a measure of team success over the entire season. The squad placed first Overall and Varsity season sweepstakes.

Results:
Overall Season Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Open (Varsity) Division Season Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Overall Tournament Sweepstakes: 1^st Place National Champions
Seniors Amy Lin and Joel Abraham are runner-up national champions, taking 2nd place after an outstanding final round appearance.
Seniors Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell reached Quarterfinals.
Junior Kia Witt and first-year student Max Renteria reached Double-Octafinals.

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:
Annie Chen: 4^th Speaker
Amy Lin: 5^th Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 9^th Speaker
Joel Abraham: 12^th Speaker

Maddy Scannell and Amy Lin were selected for the NPDA All-American Squad, recognizing their commitment to community service, academic excellence, and competitive success.

The tournament also brought to a close coach David Worth’s term as President of the organization. This finishes a 6-year run for Worth as an officer in the organization, first as National Tournament Director for two years, then as Vice-president for two years, and finally as President for two years.

Coach Shannon LaBove continues in her service as Treasurer of NPDA.

National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence, March 12-14, 2021

Rice debaters competed in the second half of the traditional debate nationals run, the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence. Qualification for this tournament is based on competitive success in the regular season. Going into the tournament, Rice had the number one ranked team of Chen and Scannell, number 4 ranked Lin and Abraham, number 8 ranked Kritika Shamanna and Jacob Tate, automatically qualifying them for the tournament. Witt and Renteria qualified as well as an at-large bid, giving Rice its largest ever entry for this event.

This tournament features the top 24 ranked teams in the nation in debates with 2-7 judges in each round. It measures preliminary rounds by ballot count totals and elimination rounds are double-elimination. Teams are given a final ordinal ranking in the tournament.

Results:
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Elimination Round 6 (analogous to semi-finals), 3^rd Place Overall
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Elimination 3 (top 6), 9^th Place Overall
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Elimination 4 (analogous to querterfinals), 6^th Place Overall
Kia Witt and Max Renteria debated very well, earning 5 ballots and narrowly missing the break by a few points.

Overall Debate Speaker Awards:
Amy Lin: 2^nd Speaker
Annie Chen: 5^th Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 6^th Speaker
Joel Abraham: 8^th Speaker

These incredible results cap off amazing debate careers for seniors Abraham, Chen, Lin, and Scannell. They have shown true commitment to enhancing their undergraduate education through debate and representing Rice with supreme excellence. They will be greatly missed.

The seniors leave juniors Shamanna, Tate, and Witt and first-year Renteria to carry on the legacy. As these results show, that tradition is in excellent hands!

Looking Forward to Speech Nationals

The team now turns its attention to the nationals run for speech events, comprised for Rice of four tournaments, Pi Kappa Delta, the National Speech Tournament, and the National Forensic Association National Tournament. These championships feature differing qualification and entry conditions, distinct competitive contexts, and varying challenges.

Rice also has one of Texas’ two entries to the Interstate Oratorical Contest, the nation’s oldest speaking contest focusing on persuasive speaking. Lauren Palladino will represent Rice at this prestigious event after the nationals run is complete.

Rice has entries to each of these upcoming tournaments that are truly historic. Rice speakers have overcome tremendous technical challenges during this virtual season and are positioned very well to bring home a national championship.

Stay tuned for more good news as we progress through nationals season!

The team is housed in the School of Humanities and coached by Humanities faculty David Worth and Shannon LaBove.

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Rice Speech Competitors Bring Home 12 awards and a PKD National Championship in Program Oral Interpretation!

Rice Individual Event/Speech competitors started their nationals season run with the Pi Kappa Delta National Comprehensive Tournament this past weekend. This event featured 1342 entries from 79 schools. Rice had 9 finalists in this prestigious event. Here are the results

Overall Sweepstakes: 6^th

Program Oral Interpretation
Taylor Gilliam: 1^st Place PKD National Champion!
Tiffany Sloan: Quarterfinalist

Poetry Interpretation
Tiffany Sloan: 2^nd Place
Taylor Gilliam: 5^th Place

After Dinner Speaking
Lauren Palladino: 3^rd Place
Taylor Gilliam: 5^th Place

Prose Interpretation
Tiffany Sloan: 3^rd Place
Taylor Gilliam: 6^th Place

Duo Interpretation
Taylor Gilliam and Tiffany Sloan: 3^rd Place

Extemporaneous Speaking
“Excellence Awards”(next out):
Lauren Palladino
Mehek Jain

Next up for these amazing competitors is the American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament (formerly AFA-NIET).

Stay tuned for more updates!

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Rice Speech and Debate: Rice Ranked Number One in the Nation!

Rice Speech and Debate had a very successful month in November! The team represented Rice in multiple virtual events, finished the month at the top of the national rankings, and with multiple events qualified for the AFA-National Speech Tournament.

Rice is currently ranked 1^st in the nation in debate National Parliamentary Debate Association season sweepstakes. This is a squad ranking that measures overall team performance.

Rice also has three of the top ten debate teams (pairs) in the nation, including the number one team, according to the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence rankings. This is a measure of the records of individual debate pairs within squads:

Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell are currently the top team in the nation!
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham are ranked 3^rd in the nation!
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate are ranked 9^th in the nation!

Tournament results:

McKendree University Tournament Bearcat Classic, 11/14-15/2020

This competitive virtual debate event featured 22 teams from 9 colleges and universities. Rice debaters “closed out” the final round, leaving only Rice teams left in the top two spots in the tournament! Rice won 7 awards.

Sweepstakes: 1^st Place Overall
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell:
Tie for 1^st Place, Varsity Debate with Lin/Abraham

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham:
Tie for 1^st Place, Varsity Debate with Chen/Scannell
Kia Witt and Max Renteria: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate

Rice won the top 3 of 4 spots and closed out finals! Krithika Shamanna/Jacob Tate and Amy Lin/ Joel Abraham closed out one semifinal bracket. Lin and Abraham advanced to the final based on record. Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell won the other semifinal bracket, creating the close-out.

Speaker Awards:
Amy Lin: 2^nd Overall Speaker
Joel Abraham: 6^th Overall Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 9^th Overall Speaker

Overall Rice won 24 debates

Texas Intercollegiate Forensics Association Fall Championship, 11/7-8/2020

There were 277 speech entries from 20 colleges and universities in this two-tournament event that focuses on Texas’ outstanding forensics programs. With the results of this event, Rice speech competitors qualified or gained substantial points toward qualification for multiple events for the national tournament. Rice brought home 10 awards from this traditionally challenging event.

First tournament:

6^th Place Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Impromptu Speaking
2^nd Place Persuasive Speaking

Taylor Gilliam:
1^st Place Programmed Oral Interpretation

Taylor Gilliam and Tiffany Sloan:
4^th Place Duo Interpretation

Second Tournament:

3^rd Place Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino:
1^st Place Persuasive Speaking

Tiffany Sloan:
1^st Place Poetry Interpretation

Taylor Gilliam and Tiffany Sloan:
3^rd Place Duo Interpretation

Mehek Jain:
4^th Place Extemporaneous Speaking

These students have logged many hours of preparation for these intense competitions and have worked hard to adapt to the virtual environment. Their effort is truly exemplary of the Rice spirit. Please join us in congratulating these outstanding academic competitors!

The George R. Brown Forensics Society, Rice’s competitive intercollegiate speech and debate team, has been hard at work representing Rice with distinction. The first month of the Spring semester has been very successful for the team. Results are listed below. Please congratulate these academic competitors!

Texas Tech/Ut-Tyler Swing Part 1

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Semifinalists, Debate
Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: Semifinalists, Debate
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Octafinalists, Debate
Amy Lin: 2^nd Overall Debate Speaker
Joel Abraham: 6^th Overall Debate Speaker
Annie Chen: 14^th Overall Debate Speaker

Texas Tech/Ut-Tyler Swing Part 2

Annie Chen and Maddy Scannell: 2^nd Place, Debate
Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Semifinalists, Debate
Krithika Shamanna and Jacob Tate: Octafinalists, Debate
Amy Lin: 18^th Overall Debate Speaker
Annie Chen: 5^th Overall Debate Speaker
Maddy Scannell: 2^nd Overall Debate Speaker

University of Texas/Bradley Swing

Lauren Palladino: 2nd Place Extemporaneous Speaking (with a speech on gender equality out of 5 other final round competitors who were men)—Second half of swing.

Concordia University Irvine

Amy Lin and Joel Abraham: Semifinalists, Debate
Alissa Kono and Kia Witt: Octafinalists, Debate

Mardi Gras Swing—Louisiana State University

Part 1:

3^rd Place Overall Sweepstakes

Tiffany Sloan: 2^nd Place Programmed Oral Interpretation; 3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation
Lauren Palladino: 4^th Place Communication Analysis; 3^rd Place Impromptu Speaking
Cole Lambo: 4^th Place Impromptu Speaking
Bria Murray: 4^th Place Informative Speaking

Part 2:

4^th Place Sweepstakes

Lauren Palladino: 1^st Place Persuasive Speaking; 4^th Place Communication Analysis
Bria Murray: 2^nd Place Informative Speaking
Cole Lambo: 3^rd Place Impromptu Speaking
Tiffany Sloan: 3^rd Place Poetry Interpretation

The team will next be competing at the University of Missouri.

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove.