COMPETITION
Increasing Access to Speech and Debate through Virtual Tournaments Learn how virtual competition can provide access to underrepresented groups.
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s educators who believe in the transformative power of speech and debate, we envision a world in which every student has access to high quality competition. Unfortunately, our current competition model is failing underrepresented students. Tournaments are expensive and can price out schools, programs, and individual students due to a lack of financial resources. Students need to participate in order to see the benefits of the activity, but without investing time and resources into getting students to tournaments, it can be difficult to convince parents and administrators that the commitment is worthwhile. Even for well-supported programs, schools in rural or remote areas find that the distance to travel to tournaments is prohibitive.
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It is time for our community to look for unique ways to supplement the brick and mortar tournament infrastructure currently in place so we can better serve all of our students. One strategy to explore is providing access to speech and debate competition through virtual tournament opportunities.
PROVIDING ACCESS How can virtual competition provide access to underrepresented groups?
ROSTRUM | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
Cost: It can be easier to fit virtual tournament costs into a small budget. Virtual tournaments remove the cost of transportation, hotel fees, and meals for a program. Entry fees may be lower because they do not need to
cover a host’s costs for facilities, custodial staff, or concessions.
Frequency: Virtual tournament options have the potential to provide access to more frequent, high quality events with diverse competition. Programs would no longer be limited to competitions in their geographic area, and students could learn from competitors and judges with different backgrounds.
Buy-In: Student participation at lowcost, low-commitment events allows parents and administrators to see the benefits of the activity in order to justify the time and financial commitment of a funded program.
Training: Virtual competition could provide training opportunities for coaches and judges.
Imagine holding a statewide judge training for Public Forum on a weekday after work hours early in the year. A live, online training reduces the barriers of scheduling and drive time, and it can even feature a live debate by available students. It can be recorded and sent to people unable to attend. Building an army of virtually trained judges and knowledgeable coaches can build the infrastructure for robust local competition.
Preparation: Online competition has the potential to provide practice rounds and pretournament preparation between students. It can be difficult to grow a program with a new coach or a lone Policy team, but having access to virtual infrastructure that connects them to other competitors or coaches for a pre-tournament scrimmage can help them grow their experience.