Three National Titles in 2012!

The 2011-12 season marks one of the most spectacular in the entire history of the program. The team shattered its previous record for students advanced to the championship rounds, with 62 entries ranked in the top 24 nationally, spread across every competitive category. The previous team high was 45. The team placed 2nd overall at the American Forensic Association tournament, narrowly edging perennial champion Western Kentucky but falling short of eventual champion Bradley University-- despite the single best performance by a UT team ever. The team also placed 3rd at the National Forensic Association tournament with a slightly reduced squad.

Some highlights of the year included the selection of All-American Christy Liu, UT's 11th All-American. All-Americans are selected on the basis of academic performance, competitive success, and community service. Liu was also ranked 8th overall speaker nationally by the American Forensic Association, and 12th overall speaker by the National Forensic Association.

In Extemporaneous Speaking, senior Christy Liu won the American Forensic Association National Championship, and in Persuasive Speaking, senior William Igbokwe won both the American and National Forensic Association National Championships!

A total of FOUR UT students were ranked in the top six nationally in Extemporaneous Speaking, including Seniors David Wang and Christy Liu and Juniors Rahul Sangal and Daniel Hatoum. Three different students placed in the top 6 in Persuasion, with William Igbokwe winning both national titles and Kyle Akerman placing 3rd at AFA and Nathan Rarick placing 6th at the Interstate Oratorical contest in Boston. Rahul Sangal missed the national championship in Impromptu Speaking by 1 rank, placing second. William Igbokwe placed 5th in After Dinner Speaking, Melissa Lamb placed 6th in Prose Interpretation, Kyle Akerman placed 6th in Informative Speaking, and Christy Liu placed 3rd in Rhetorical Criticism.

In summary UT students advanced 19 entries to the top 12 nationally, and another 29 to the top 24-- both new team records.

A huge thanks to team assistant directors Leah Lefevbre and Brandon Anderson for their incredible work throughout the year, as well as to alumni volunteer coaches Nance Riffe, Bryan Gray, Aviva Pinchas, Mary Kate Raffetto, Brendan Chan, Bryan Gray, Casey Garcia and Chris Mendez for making this a spectacular year, and to team captains Kyle Akerman and Christy Liu for their leadership of the team, as well as to the entire staff of the Dept. of Communication Studies, most especially Jennifer Betancourt, Deanna Matthews, and Chair Barry Brummett.

2010 Extemp & Congress Lecture List

Below is the proposed lecture list for 2010 from Jason Warren:

China: Did you Know?
Economic Policymaking I- Basic Fundamental Concepts
Economic Policymaking II- The American Economy at Work
Economic Policymaking III- International Trade, Currency Trading, and the Washington Consensus
Foreign Policy Theory
Iran: Goin' nuclear at any time
Israel/Palestine: Bringing you instability since 1945.
Russia- Livin' in the former USSR
How to win an American Election- Looking to November
The American Military: Where it comes from and where it fights.
The United Nations: An Oxymoron
Africa I- Continent-Wide Issues
Africa II- The Hotspots
Americas I- Mexico, Canada, and the future of NAFTA
Americas II- South American Politics
Asia I- Japan
Asia II- India and Pakistan
Asia III- Koreas
Afghanistan: It's a thing.
Europe I- Western Europe, EU, and the Politics of NATO
Europe II- Looking to the East
The Middle East- Iraq and all those other associated states
Banks and Financial Reform
Congressional Politics
Environmental and Energy Policy
Federalism- State/Local Politics
Judicial Issues, the Supreme Court, and Jurisprudence
National Security and Military Issues
Education: Is our children smarts good?
Health Care- An Overview of the issues
Minorities: Immigration, gay marriage, and issues of race
Health Care- What the hell did we just do to it? The Obama plan.
The Presidency: The Institution and the age of Obama

UTNIF Extemp & Congress

Hello all! The summer is upon us and that means it's time for another UTNIF. With that, of course, comes another fun UTNIF Extemp Lab! I wanted to take a moment to prepare you for what a day in the life of UTNIF Extemp looks like for those of you brave enough to join us :)

Mornings include topic discussions and research time. Our faculty will cover current events across the board throughout the course of the institute: Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, the economy to social issues, our presidential election and elections across the globe. Alongside the lecture series, we scour the university library- one of the largest in the country- for top-of-the-line research that extempers can use throughout the year. You name the journal, we got it. Book chapters suit your fancy? Done. We hope every extemper will leave with an amazing set of lecture notes and a great research packet to start the year!

In the afternoon, our focus shifts to the mechanics and practice of extemp. Students will be divided into labs to get more one-on-one time with faculty members working on extemp drills specifically tailored to meet their individual needs. Whether its building confidence and fluidity, developing your conversational speaking skills, going deeper with argumentation, or incorporating humor, we've got the lab work to push you to take extemp to the next level. Additionally, each speaker will get two practice speeches per afternoon, plus work sessions with our instructors. We hope you love extemp as much as we do, because you'll be doing a lot of it.

Students majoring in Congress will be taken all the way through legislative debate preparation. We will cover writing and drafting legislation, argumentation strategies, organization and delivery, parliamentary procedure, how to effectively serve as a presiding officer, and much much more.

In addition, students will sit in on daily topic and theory lectures devoted to issues in which all successful Congressional Debaters should be well versed. In the afternoon, the information conveyed in these lectures will be employed during numerous practice sessions and individually tailored instruction to meet the unique needs of all of the students, novice and varsity alike.

The evenings are devoted to minor time, and we offer a variety of opportunities for those seeking to go above and beyond the call of normal forensic duty:

Impromptu- most take this event less seriously than they should, but our extemp faculty have a combined grand total of over 15 national final rounds in the event and 5 championships. Impromptu is a great supplement to those who feel like taking the event seriously and serving as model impromptu speakers. We cover a variety of impromptu formats and styles and can work with any regional preferences.

Extemp- back again this year is our double extemp program for those who major and minor in extemp. This minor offers deeper, seminar-based discussion of current events issues and more individualized instruction. For those who minor in extemp who major elsewhere, we offer a baseline training in extemp theory, a topic lecture, and a practice round a day.

If I were an Extemp Major, I might ask someone, "Why should I also be an Extemp Minor?"Well, kids, that one's easy: Extemp Double Majors get more attention, more information, more instruction. In other words, Double Majors in Extemp are hard core extempers. You're like Extemp Assassins. Extemp Ninjas.

If I were an Oratory or Interp Major, I might ask someone, "why should I sign up for an Extemp Minor?" Well, first, Extemp Minors leave UTNIF ready to compete at their first tournament - you will attend structure lectures, content lectures and practice rounds. Plus, extemp skills translate pretty easily into your other events and into your classes.

On behalf of the extemp & congress staff, we look forward to meeting you this summer. Please let us know if you have any questions!

All the best,

Jason Warren
UTNIF Extemp Co-Director
Assistant Director of Forensics: George Mason University
M.A., University of Texas Class of 2006