apda annual report 2012 - apdaweb.org the parliamentary debate format, ... of an important...

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The American Parliamentary Debate Association, Inc.

Annual Report

October 2012

Annual Report | 2012

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Table of Contents OVERVIEW Mission and Objectives……………………………………………………………………………3 Geographic Reach………………………………………………………………………………....4 League Growth……………………………………………………………………………………5 YEAR IN REVIEW Executive Board and Committees…………………………………………………………………8 Board Projects…………………………………………………………………………………….9 Alumni Committee………………………………………………………………………………..10 Equal Opportunity Facilitators……………………………………………………………………12 Expansion Coordinators…………………………………………………………………………..15 Novice Mentor Program…………………………………………………………………………..16 PLANS FOR THIS YEAR Executive Board and Committees………………………………………………………………....17 Board Projects…………………………………………………………………………………….17 Alumni Committee………………………………………………………………………………..20 Equal Opportunity Facilitators……………………………………………………………………21 Expansion Coordinators………………………………………………………………………..…22 Novice Mentor Program……………………………………………………………………….…23 FINANCIAL SUMMARY Overview………………………………………………………………………………………....25 2011-2012 Fiscal Year……………………………………………………………………………25 2012-2013 Fiscal Year……………………………………………………………………………27 Financial History…………………………………………………………………………………28 APPEDICES 2011-2012 Meeting Minutes………………………………………………………………..……..29 2011-2012 Schedule………………………………………………………………………………31 2012-2013 Schedule………………………………………………………………………………32


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Overview Mission and Objectives The American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) is the oldest intercollegiate parliamentary debating association in the United States. APDA was created in 1982 to coordinate tournament scheduling, liaise with other national and international debate organizations, raise funds to support debate tournaments, and sanction a national championship tournament each year. Today, APDA sponsors nearly fifty tournaments each year (typically two or three each weekend), all in the parliamentary debate format, as well as a National Championship. It also sponsors the North American Debating Championship along with the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID). APDA member schools are located as far south as Florida, as far west as California, and as far north as Maine. In the past decade, APDA has increased its role in facilitating debate in the United States. In the spring of 2000, the APDA body passed a resolution to create an Equal Opportunity Facilitator (EOF) program. The Equal Opportunity Facilitators (EOFs) are fellow students and APDA debaters working to facilitate a harassment-free environment and mediate personal conflicts that arise. Similarly, the league instituted a Novice Mentor program designed to provide a committee of experienced debaters from around the league that first-year debaters can reach out to as a resource for learning how to debate, independent of their own teams. APDA also established regional Expansion Coordinator positions to help colleges start new debate programs and acclimate to the circuit. Finally, in the past several years, APDA has formalized its alumni outreach by forming an Alumni Committee comprised of recent graduates and current students. Through these initiatives and more, APDA as an institution has taken on a more pronounced role in facilitating debate for hundreds of college students across the United States each year.


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Geographic Reach

APDA Member and/or Active SchoolsAmerican University Amherst College Bates College Boston University Brandeis University Brown University Bryn Mawr College Catholic University Columbia University Cornell University Dartmouth College DePaul University Duke University Eastern Connecticut State University Fordham University Franklin and Marshall College George Washington University Harvard University

Haverford College Hobart and William Smith Colleges Johns Hopkins University Loyola Marymount University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Middlebury College Mount Holyoke College New York University Northeastern University Odette School of Business University of Pennsylvania Princeton University Providence College Rutgers University Smith College Stanford University Stony Brook University Swarthmore College

Syracuse University The College of New Jersey Tufts University University of Connecticut University of Maryland - Baltimore County University of Maryland - College Park University of Albany University of Chicago University of Pittsburgh University of Vermont University of Virginia Vassar College Wellesley College Wesleyan University US Military Academy - West Point College of William and Mary Williams College Yale University

Schools that Contacted the Expansion Coordinators in 2011-2012 Brock University (Canada) Carnegie Mellon University Mater Ecclesiae College Morehouse College

Pennsylvania State University Sarah Lawrence College Stony Brook University University of California - Berkeley

University of Delaware University of Wisconsin-Madison Widener University


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League Growth APDA has grown significantly in recent years (the only years for which records are available). Total attendance at tournaments has increased for six consecutive years, or 32% total since 2006-2007.

The average size and number of tournaments have grown, as well. APDA’s 47 tournaments last year marked an increase of 7 from 2005-2006, and averaged a record 114 debaters each.

Series1; 2005‐2006; 4212 Series1; 2006‐2007;

4048

Series1; 2007‐2008; 4570

Series1; 2008‐2009; 4626

Series1; 2009‐2010; 4866

Series1; 2010‐2011; 5010

Series1; 2011‐2012; 5348

y = 201x + 3864.6 R² = 0.92551

Total Debaters at APDA Tournaments


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First-year competition has increased, as well. Again, 2011-2012 was a record year with close to double the novice attendance rates of five years ago. Novices comprised 54% of total competitors.

105

101

95

98

108

104

114

85

90

95

100

105

110

115

120

2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012

Average Debaters per Tournament

1914 1823 1573

1782

2422 2302

2886

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012

Total First-Year Debaters at Tournaments


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16 17 19 20 25

23 24

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012

Tournaments with 50+ Debaters


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Year in Review

Board and Committees

President: Ashley Woods VP of Operations: Alex Rosenberg VP of Finance: Coulter King Member-at-Large: Reid Bagwell Member-at-Large: Alison Kennedy Member-at-Large: Alex Loomis

Trustee: Aram Boghosian Trustee: Josh Morrison

Head Novice Mentor: Josh Zoffer Novice Mentor: Mark Andriola Novice Mentor: Keith Barry Novice Mentor: Mike Barton Novice Mentor: Matt Herdman Novice Mentor: Russell Leibowitz Novice Mentor: Madeline Zhu

Head Expansion Coordinator: Denise Yu Expansion Coordinator: Andrew Connery Expansion Coordinator: Cary Glynn Expansion Coordinator: Ani-Rae Lovell Expansion Coordinator: Alex Zhao

EOF Secretary: Nicky Bell EOF: Alyssa Bilinski EOF: Kim Bouchard EOF: Linnet Davis-Stermitz EOF: Samantha Sanders EOF: Madeline Zhu

Alumni Committee Member: Ellina Nektalova Alumni Committee Member: Elizabeth Tam Alumni Committee Member: Arthur Traldi

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Board Projects Over the past year, the board improved the functioning of APDA in several areas. In addition to routine business, the board focused on improving APDA’s financial transparency, increasing institutional memory, and connecting with alumni through a more formal and structured program. The league’s finances were a primary concern. Lack of clarity concerning the VP Finance position had resulted in signing authority not being passed down to the next holder of the position at times, and it was sometimes unclear to the league what assets APDA held. To correct this, the board wrote a financial report based on bank statements and information from the league’s checkbook and created a position guide that details relevant information and instructions for future board members. These measures allowed the body to make informed decisions about the allocation of APDA’s assets, including one to fund $500 in judge transportation to Nationals in April. The collection of the unopposed tournament tax and strict dues requirements to vote in league elections allowed the league to substantially increase its revenue. Although other attempts to raise funding (including several applications for grants) were unsuccessful, a more comprehensive attempt to secure grants and corporate sponsorship could benefit APDA in the future. The APDA board pursued several initiatives aimed at increasing support for individual teams, including newer teams. Several guides (directed particularly at newer teams) were created to help teams fundraise and run tournaments effectively, including a guide to team budgeting and a guide by alumnus Jake Campbell on how to recruit alumni judges to judge at APDA tournaments. In addition, each board member was assigned several tournaments with which to check several weeks in advance in order to make sure they were successfully recruiting judges and otherwise felt prepared to host a tournament. Beyond this, the board published The Clash in the fall and spearheaded the creation of an Alumni Committee that created a website, alumni contact database and newsletter, and held a reunion event in the spring. In the spring, the APDA board also reached out to the International Debate Education Association to discuss future partnerships, funding opportunities, and joint projects. While the results of this discussion largely remain to be seen, this discussion marked the beginning of an important relationship and led to discussion of a new computer tabulation program that would include the features to tabulate American parliamentary debate tournaments. The board was not able to achieve a few of its goals—including increasing outreach to high school debaters, working with the EOFs to produce a gender equity report (not enough tournaments provided data for this to be possible), increasing charity work by APDA, and increasing revenue through grants—but much of the work we undertook was successful and should have a lasting effect on the practices of future boards and the league as a whole.


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Alumni Committee Though APDA has existed for about thirty years, attempts on the part of the league to create a more active alumni network have been sporadic and largely informal. In 2010-2011, the league created the first Alumni Committee in recent years, with the 2011-2012 season marking its second year. The broad goal of the committee was to formalize APDA’s alumni network, create opportunities for alumni to interact in a non-debate tournament setting, and allow future committees to build on this foundation and launch more ambitious initiatives. The Alumni Committee listed four specific goals in its fall newsletter and largely accomplished these during the course of the year. The first goal was to compile an alumni contacts database. By compiling lists that other alumni and schools had maintained, as well as setting up an online form for alumni to sign up for the list proactively, we were able to create an email list of several hundred alumni. This step was key; the success of future initiatives and efforts to bring minimally involved alumni back into the college debate network depended on our ability to quickly and easily contact them directly. Next, we wanted to establish a stronger web presence. We accomplished this through the creation of a separate alumni website (alumni.apdaweb.org) to host newsletters, videos of alums competing in rounds, sign up forms for our mailing list, and so on. In addition, Elizabeth Tam spearheaded a social media initiative that included a Facebook page (now with about 300 fans) and Twitter account, both actively managed by the committee. We figured that mailings were both impractical (we largely lacked that contact information) and expensive, so online outreach became a cornerstone of our efforts.


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Third, we sought to publish an alumni newsletter. Now that we had an audience, the key was producing worthwhile content. The newsletter, far from just regurgitating results from the previous season that would be old news to very involved alumni and irrelevant to those who lacked connections to the current circuit, covered a range of topics that we thought might interest alumni, as well as the current debate community. Elizabeth Tam wrote about the most recent recipients of the Distinguished Service Award, covering recent news and, more importantly, the reasons why many alumni consider the activity sufficiently formative and valuable that they remain involved for years after they finish debating. Ellina Nektalova spoke with ten alumni dating back to the class of 1985 and wrote about developments in the culture of debate and the resulting involvement of women over the past several decades. Other content included a letter from the current President and a series of interviews with APDA alumni David Frum, Dahlia Lithwick, and David Martland. Finally, the league held its first alumni reunion event at Sky Room in New York in mid-March. The event went off without a hitch thanks to the efforts of Elizabeth Tam and brought together about a dozen alumni (some up to ten years out of college) for a fun night. In some ways, this event best embodied the goals of the committee. During the year, we ask a lot of alumni, who come back week after week, to judge at tournaments, often after a full week of work. This event used emails, a website, social media, and the efforts of the committee to plan an event focused on the alumni themselves and reunite members of this college community without the pressures and commitment of judging.


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Equal Opportunity Facilitators Nicky Bell

“Equity means more cupcakes and more women but not necessarily cupcakes made by women.” On behalf of the 2011-12 EOF committee, I am pleased to report that the EOF program had one of the most active and productive years in recent memory. In addition to continuing the program’s mission of raising awareness about equity issues and providing resources to teams and debaters, the EOF committee employed a variety of new outreach techniques to increase its visibility in the league. These efforts were successful because of the hard work and dedication of a talented team of EOFs. While work continues to prepare the EOF program for the future, the past year has laid the groundwork for sustained growth and development toward that goal. At the beginning of the year, the EOFs developed six strategic goals that were presented to the APDA membership. The purposes of these goals were twofold: to establish a coherent vision for the program that would carry over from year to year and to hold the EOF committee to account for its work. The six strategic goals were:

1. More empowerment of tournament equity officers 2. Finding out more about biases on APDA 3. Creating a broader support network 4. Promoting a more inclusive environment for women on APDA 5. Fostering a better understanding of sensitive language 6. Ensuring open-minded communication between APDA and the EOFs

We met each goal in some way, but some received (or demanded) more attention than others. We were particularly successful at goals 2, 5, and 6. A statistical project on biases using post-tournament tab information, co-founded by committee member Alyssa Bilinski, made significant headway over the course of the year and may be continued over the next season or the next several seasons. On at least three occasions, the EOF committee as a whole responded to complaints about offensive or insensitive language used in the context of debate, and the committee’s prompt and measured response to those incidents exemplified the intention of the sixth goal. Although we had planned to create an online tournament equity officer training program, this effort stalled due to the competing time commitments of some committee members, myself included. This is a critical goal for the EOF program, however, since the EOF committee seeks to be a resource for tournament officials, not a replacement. It is noteworthy that at least half a dozen tournaments employed an EOF to assist in their equity efforts in both official and unofficial capacities. While more could have been done to reach out to tournaments, the EOFs made themselves readily available to teams seeking assistance.


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Other efforts, such as a women’s cocktail hour, women’s alumni event, and efforts connect with outside advocacy groups, including Teach for America and the National Bone Marrow Donor Program, similarly faced setbacks. However, each of these ideas provides an opportunity to fulfill the remaining strategic objectives and long-term reevaluation of the EOF program’s role on APDA. It is our hope that next year’s EOF program, under the able and experienced leadership of Alyssa Bilinski, will pick up these efforts where we have left off, as well as develop new ideas for how to make the EOF program more beneficial to APDA’s teams and debaters.

The highlight of the year was the Equity Candidate’s Forum at the BU/Elections tournament in March, masterfully organized by Madeline Zhu. This new twist on the traditional equity forum proved to be popular, and both candidates and audience members seemed to enjoy discussing equity issues with the future leadership of the league in mind. Finding creative ways to continue our core mission while making equity awareness more relevant to the APDA community is an important long-term goal of the EOF program, and the Candidate’s Forum was a prime example of how to achieve that objective. We hope that next year’s EOF committee will continue to explore new means of reaching out to APDA debaters and making equity a league-wide conversation. Kudos must again be given to Alyssa Bilinski, who supplemented the Candidate’s Forum with delicious “equity cupcakes.” In exchange for a cupcake, debaters were asked to describe what equity


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means to them, which is the origin of the quote preceding my report. Other quotes typical of those we received included:

“Equity means respecting people who are different from me.” “Equity means fairness and equality, regardless of gender, age, and reputation.” “Equity means a league where people are comfortable being themselves.” “Equity means that every debater has the right to be judged purely on their merit and nothing else.”

There is much to be learned from the experience of the 2011-12 EOF program. Developing a strategic vision for the program from the outset helped guide our planning for the year and gave us a metric by which to judge our effectiveness. We worked closely as a team, which enabled the sharing of creative and unique ideas. Of Course, Alyssa’s cupcakes help. As in the past, execution requires a combination of commitment and realistic expectations. Balancing school, debate, and EOF responsibilities is a challenge, one that I myself faced. But on those occasions when we stumbled on an idea which we could rally around and which demanded a reasonable exertion of effort, success was at our fingertips. It was those times when this EOF committee truly showed its extraordinary capacity to make APDA a safer, more equitable, and more welcoming league. I end this report like I began it: with a quote, also from the “equity cupcakes” event. At the end of the day, debate should be fun, and having an equitable league helps that happen. We hope that we contributed to that fundamental mission in some small way over the past year. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

“Equity means that everyone can have the same fun that I have.”


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Expansion Coordinators Denise Yu In 2011-2012, APDA continued to expand steadily, continuing the trend of the last two years. This year saw some small successes: first, several schools that had previously been considered expansion schools became regularly competing members of the circuit, and some even hosted tournaments; second, schools that approached the expansion committee came from increasingly diverse geographic regions of North America. Since setting up the [email protected] email, the expansion committee received inquiries from institutions ranging from large state schools such as the University of Delaware to Canadian liberal arts colleges like Brock University in Ontario. One of the most successful new initiatives of the past year was the inception of expansion forums at tournaments. The first APDA Expansion Forum was held at the University of Chicago in March, with the generous assistance of tournament directors Clara Spera and Leighton Huch. The first conversation regarding ways in which established APDA schools can help newer schools, with emphasis on teams located far from the northeast corridor, was so successful that it was extended over multiple sessions during the tournament. Students from Stanford, Odette, and other Chicago-area schools expressed their concern over a lack of accessible practice tournaments for novice debaters early in the season, harming team retention and steepening the learning curve. The forum culminated in case-writing workshops and small-group mentoring sessions on Saturday with the help of Novice Mentors Russell Leibowitz and Mark Andriola. Expansion forums hold promise for the circuit in terms of retaining new teams. By creating more structured channels for dialogue, the expansion committee and leaders of active teams can better understand the issues facing new teams. The Chicago Expansion Forum yielded more than just talk – in the fall, the Chicago Debate Society is hosting the first-ever novice tournament not on the east coast. With innovative and dedicated leadership, the APDA Expansion Committee will become even better equipped in 2012-2013 to grow the circuit in a positive direction.


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Novice Mentor Program Josh Zoffer A team of seven APDA members led the 2011-2012 Novice Mentor Program, with Josh Zoffer serving as Head Novice Mentor and Madeline Zhu, Keith Barry, Russell Leibowitz, Mark Andriola, and Michael Barton comprising the rest of the committee. This year was a banner year for the program, with all but one of the Novice Mentors completing their novice hybrid (the remaining mentor substituted this for online novice coaching), a first for the program. The Novice Mentor Committee also expanded its offerings beyond demo rounds in order to provide the league’s novices with a greater range of services. In addition to demo rounds at Johns Hopkins, Columbia, BU Novice, and Swarthmore Novice, the Novice Mentors organized lectures at BU Novice, Swarthmore Novice, and Northeastern ProAms. These lectures were delivered by some of APDA’s leading coaches and top debaters, including 2012 APDA National Champion and TOTY Alex Loomis, Wellesley coach Jake Campbell, and Rutgers coach Storey Clayton. The Novice Mentors also held Novice Forums at both American and Northeastern ProAms in order to give novices a greater voice in the program and solicit feedback on their efforts to that point. The program finished out the year with a novice casing workshop at NYU featuring almost the entire Novice Mentor Committee and a number of high profile APDA debaters including 2nd TOTY David Trinh and APDA Nationals Finalist Nick Cugini. Overall, the 2011-2012 program saw a remarkable expansion in its offerings and presence on the circuit, a trend the board hopes to continue in the coming year.


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Plans for This Year Board and Committees

President: Coulter King VP of Operations: Samantha Sanders VP of Finance: Josh Zoffer Member-at-Large: Mark Andriola Member-at-Large: Jacob Grunberger Member-at-Large: Ashley Novak

Trustee: Josh Morrison Trustee: R. Kyle Bean

Head Novice Mentor: Young Seol Novice Mentor: Alex Alifimoff Novice Mentor: Keith Barry Novice Mentor: Alison Douglis Novice Mentor: David Israel Novice Mentor: Russell Leibowitz Novice Mentor: Randi Saunders Novice Mentor: Beth Sheil

Head Expansion Coordinator: Cary Glynn Expansion Coordinator: Leighton Huch Expansion Coordinator: David Kopel Expansion Coordinator: Henry Phipps Expansion Coordinator: Nate Rifkin

EOF Secretary: Alyssa Bilinski EOF: Alycia Hogenmiller EOF: Nate Rifkin EOF: Beth Sheil EOF: David Stauffer EOF: Joanna Zheng

Alumni Committee Head: Ellina Nektalova Alumni Committee Head: Elizabeth Tam Alumni Committee Member: Lisa Vickers Alumni Committee Member: Denise Yu

Board Projects Samantha Sanders The Board has taken on several new projects in addition to fulfilling its other responsibilities (e.g., refining the tab observer policy, appointing people to various positions, granting school affiliation exemptions). Although we have tried to use feedback from the body to shape these projects, we have unfortunately found a lack of discussion surrounding new proposals and Board policies outside the APDA elections window. Accordingly, this section of the report is intended to simply present these projects as a rough sketch of what we intend to pursue over the coming year—we are very open to adding additional projects, as well as modifying the projects listed here. We intend to create a Google Docs form that everyone can access and post it on the forum to solicit comments on these projects (as well as general feedback on the body). With this disclaimer in mind, one of the first projects we are pursuing is an amendment to the NorthAms Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CUSID. As it is currently written, a debater can compete for any school at which he/she is enrolled, even if it is not their primary school. This caused some conflict at NorthAms this past year, and CUSID has requested to amend


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the MOU to make people eligible only for the school at which they are primarily enrolled, the same standard we use for OTYs and APDA Nationals. This was not contentious when it was discussed at Nationals, so we drafted an amendment to reflect this change. The amendment text is as follows (changes in bold):

All teams competing at the Championships shall be composed of debaters representing and primarily enrolled at the same institution. A debater is considered to be primarily enrolled at the institution where he or she is taking the majority of his or her classes during that academic year. A debater enrolled at two universities as part of a joint degree program that is recognized and administered by both institutions is considered to be primarily enrolled at both institutions. No hybrid teams composed of debaters representing different institutions are allowed to partake at the Championships. Individuals wishing to debate who are not enrolled at an institution are not eligible to compete. All eligibility questions shall be settled by joint agreement of the APDA and CUSID Presidents.

Another initiative we are working on is fixing the APDA website. Apdaweb.org clearly needs some changes right now—for example, the OTY tracker doesn’t work correctly and the text is out of date. We are working in tandem with our new webmaster, Alex Alifimoff, to update the text of Apdaweb and add new content including new guides to various parts of APDA and team functions. Another aspect of these website changes includes the “Novice Central” portion of the website, an effort spearheaded by the Novice Mentor Committee to attract new novices. Additionally, the Novice Mentors will work on uploading weekly articles to this portion of the site to provide novices with debate-related content. Overall, we are trying to improve novice and teaching resources; this is one of our major goals for the coming year. OSF/IDEA has also suggested that they would be willing to collaborate and help fund a project to solidify an APDA curriculum (with video lectures, online presentations, documents teams could use, etc). We hope to work with the Novice Mentors and Expansion Coordinators to put together these materials. The new “Novice Central” will serve as a probable channel for the distribution of these materials, if we are able to create them. In addition, we hope to improve the league’s institutional memory. There is currently nothing written about how the Board runs and how NorthAms/Nationals is administered. It would be helpful to write guides for all of these things so that the next Board has a checklist of what to do during the coming year and so that future Nationals and NorthAms hosts know the work required to put together their respective tournaments. Moreover, we intend to keep a record of the things that we are doing as a Board. We also hope to improve upon APDA’s institutional memory by improving best practices and clarifying where they are sloppily or inconsistently written. Additionally, we’re hoping to fix the bylaws to correct the inconsistent language, minor contradictions, and irrelevant information. We intend to edit the bylaws in conjunction with a group of dinos, and we hope to post the revised version by the end of the semester so that we can vote on the changes. Some of these changes may require judgment calls on league policies, so we will create


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a separate section of the forum to discuss these policy changes (as opposed to the minor changes in language, which will not require any body-wide discussion). Finally, in terms of more minor projects, we hope to reach out to MIT to help them develop their tab software. It would be wonderful to work with the MIT team—Julia and Joey in particular—to support them in improving their program. We think that this will create a platform that other teams can use in the future. We also want to work with the new Novice Mentor, Expansion Coordinator, Alumni, and EOF teams to work with them on their proposals and ideas. For example, the Novice Mentor program may work to create a stickied forum post which serves as a hybrid directory with contact information for novice mentors and others who may generally be looking for hybrids. This way, novices (and others) can refer to this post when reaching out to people for hybrids. Moreover, we hope to explore new revenue streams by reaching out to companies that have previously supported individual teams’ tournaments (e.g., Jane Street, Kaplan, etc.) Given how little money ADPA has an institution, these sponsorships would be incredibly helpful. Finally, we may try to reach out to high school circuits or the National Forensic League to ensure that high school debaters are aware of APDA and to encourage incoming students to join their respective universities’ teams or start their own. Again, if there are any suggestions for additional Board projects, please reach out to us and let us know. We intend to create the Google Doc so that everyone can post their ideas for the Board. Furthermore, if there are any suggestions about these projects—or if anyone wants to help out with them—let us know. In particular, we are currently trying to figure out how to prioritize these various initiatives for the coming year.


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Alumni Committee Ellina Nektalova & Elizabeth Tam Now in our third year, the APDA Alumni Committee has accomplished many of the goals we have outlined, and we hope to continue hitting the mark. This year, our vision will stay focused on fostering and maintaining the alumni network and trying to facilitate interaction between alumni and those currently on the debate circuit. We will continue to pursue efforts to catalog alumni information in a database and reach out to the ever-growing pool of alumni. Overall, we hope to provide a structured way for alumni to stay involved and connected with the APDA community – past and present – long after they graduate. Our projects for this year will focus on increasing alumni involvement in the circuit. As we well know, the knowledge that alumni possess is important to maintaining the league (alumni coach, judge, help run tab rooms, and more). In addition, this direct involvement will certainly benefit new debaters, allowing them to gain the proper footing to meaningfully engage in the activity. We hope to get more alumni involved in the circuit through coaching and judging. Moreover, we will try to implement a mentorship program. More details on this will follow in our newsletter! The committee will also facilitate interaction among alumni themselves. We plan to accomplish this through networking events and our popular happy hours! This will be aided by efforts to expand the alumni database, allowing us to reach out to graduates – recent and not. We also want to expand our presence online with the platforms we have begun to use already– Facebook, Twitter and the apdaweb.org page. The Alumni Committee will continue publishing our newsletter, with hopes of releasing more than one edition this year. The content of the upcoming newsletter is currently in the works, and we hope to publish it in the fall. Our work started this summer with our first happy hour in San Francisco, hosted by our very own Denise Yu. We hope to receive feedback from alumni through surveys and emails to further guide our agenda for the year, so please email [email protected] with suggestions.


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Equal Opportunity Facilitators Alyssa Bilinski Philosophy We intend to foster and promote a positive, inclusive atmosphere on APDA and to help ensure that everyone on APDA has access to a safe, healthy, and comfortable competitive experience, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, school, age, or competitive ability. We will not only provide a forum for mediating reported equity violations but we will also support, empower, and recognize individuals who seek to promote tolerance and equity on APDA. Plans Our plans for the year include the following: Culture We intend to hold at least one equity forum to foster a continued dialog on equity issues on APDA. We also hope to develop the results of the equity forum into a code of conduct or other document to help clarify and elucidate norms on APDA. We also want to recognize individuals who do an outstanding job of promoting equity, tolerance, and inclusiveness on APDA through some type of award. The nomination process will be discussed at greater length at upcoming tournaments. Finally, we want to work with novice mentors and the board to enhance atmosphere and support system for everyone on APDA. Evidence We seek to continue to try to explore gender biases on APDA through tab results and other available data. Due to low participation last year, we are exploring other venues through which we can study gender biases concretely on APDA. Complaints We will continue the practice of announcing all EOFs who are present at each tournament as a resource for any potential equity violations. We also hope to build on last year’s efforts to create an equity officer training to help tournament Equity Officers better deal with potential complaints. Contact Us We want to hear your input! Contact us at [email protected] with questions, thoughts, or complaints.


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Expansion Coordinators Cary Glynn This past year, the Expansion Coordinators reached out to over 40 schools to provide them with learning resources and advice and help them procure registrations breaks from tournaments across the circuit. This year also saw record performances by expansion schools, with James Kilcup, a debater from expansion school Loyola Marymount, receiving second varsity speaker at the APDA National Championship. Looking to this coming year, APDA does an excellent job helping teams acclimate to the circuit and should continue to do so. One area in which the league could improve, however, is in helping teams acquire funding and resources. While some newer teams, like Rutgers, have grown expontentially in recent years due in part to strong financial support from their administrations, others, like Georgetown, have found it difficult to grow due to a lack of funding. The Expansion Coordinators are willing to meet with administrators in person to explain APDA and how it compares to other leagues. If we can help teams actually get administrative support, we can build the foundation for truly successful expansion schools. In addition, we think we should expand the resources available on the website. We also think we should have introductory sessions at tournaments, similar to demo rounds, where expansion coordinators explain how to run a team. Finally, the Expansion Coordinators should continue the expansion forums to solicit input from APDA. This not only generates good ideas but also elicits support from the body. The Expansion Coordinators are also devising a list of target schools. This list will focus on a number of criteria, including geographic proximity to the rest of the league and academic reputation. Schools we plan on targeting in the near future include Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Haverford, Naval Academy, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Colgate, Bucknell, Washington University in St. Louis, Berkeley, and University of Rochester. Additionally, we can focus on schools like Cornell, Amherst, and Williams who could use support although they might not have originally been considered expansion schools. We believe a more targeted expansion effort will help interested schools integrate more quickly and will improve the quality and diversity of debate on APDA.


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Novice Mentor Program Young Seol The novice mentor program has historically suffered challenges in maintaining its relevance on the circuit. Anecdotal evidence gathered from talking to my predecessors and fellow novice mentors during my brief period as Head Novice Mentor suggests that as recently as two years ago, most novices did not know the novice mentor program even existed, and in certain instances, were even driven away from APDA by the actions of previous novice mentors. Such reports are troublesome and indicate that the novice mentor program is in need of major reform. To that end, I have a number of goals that will serve as guides throughout the year, along with many specific initiatives I would like to implement. It is readily apparent that the novice mentor program needs to do more than simply “be there” for novices or do things, like organize demo rounds, which could easily be co-opted by the relevant tournament organizers. Thus, for my first goal, it must always remain a priority of the Novice Mentor Program to not only stay relevant but also to be proactive in helping novices on the circuit. To that end, a novice website has already been established (viewable at novices.apdaweb.org) and a wide variety of debaters, including all the novice mentors and members of the APDA board, are currently being solicited to write articles for the novice website. These articles will include basic information such as how to ask a point of information or the functions of each speech in an APDA round and will be complemented by video tutorials that are also currently in the works. To encourage novices to stay engaged, the articles will also scale in complexity as the year progresses and will also feature occasional opinion pieces to expose new debaters to the many different perspectives present on APDA. My hope is that the novice website will serve as a portal for novices to constant work and improve throughout the school year. I wish to stress that in no way do the above replace any previously implemented novice mentor projects. Novice mentors will always remain available and accessible for novices. In addition to the novice mentor website, pilot programs using Facebook and Twitter to reach out to novices will be attempted, as well as sign-ups to the private APDA forums available alongside the registration table at tournaments early in the season. A centralized novice mentor Gmail account has also already been established and will serve as a common point of contact for all novices to engage with the novice mentors as a body. A listserv has also been set up for novices who wish to subscribe to regular mailings. I believe that institutional memory is very important on APDA, and even more so specifically with regards to the novice mentor program, which has the unique burden of proactively reaching out to those in need of help, rather than merely reacting to those actively seeking it. As such, it is even more crucial that previous efforts not go wasted and that we be able to learn from our failures and capitalize upon our successes. The second goal I have for the novice mentor program this year is not only to build upon the accomplishments of previous novice mentors but also leave a legacy for future mentors. The key to


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this is constant innovation. New methods of reaching out, as outlined above, are merely one aspect of doing so. We also intend to aggressively pursue new strategies to help novices improve and solicit constant feedback to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Articles and videos are some of the ways we have already started to do this. In the future, we also hope to provide example ballots and RFDs for demo rounds so that novices can have a better sense of how a round is adjudicated and, where possible, provide multiple perspectives to show how different people are affected by different arguments and, more importantly, what type of arguments can consistently win over judges. Along with this, we plan to collect as many flows as possible from the debaters who were in a given recorded round, so that novices can learn proper flowing techniques while in a round, as opposed to the comprehensive example flows currently available that are more indicative of how rounds ought to be adjudicated. Of course, many other ideas are currently being discussed, but these are concrete examples of new teaching stratagems we fully intend to implement this coming year. While helping individuals become stronger debaters is a crucial facet of the Novice Mentor Program, it is also critical not to entrench the paradigm that debating skill is a measure of an individual’s worth or importance. Especially given the importance of reputation on APDA, in terms of both career performance and social involvement, it is important that the Novice Mentor Program counteracts such perceptions and makes all novices feel welcome and included on the circuit. This is my third goal for the novice mentor program. However, this is challenging because the people that feel excluded on APDA are also generally the least likely to reach out to the novice mentors. Even so, being proactive through initiatives like pro-am hybriding and close communication with expansion coordinators, along with a commitment to being friendly and accessible both during and outside of rounds, will ideally provide greater comfort for those new to the circuit and establish a precedent for future novice mentors in expanding the visibility and access of the program. This brings me to my final goal for the novice mentor program, which is to synergize with the various divisions of APDA leadership, such as the board and the expansion coordinators. This will happen through two major approaches. Firstly, the program will strive to be as transparent as possible to prevent any communication breakdowns with other branches of APDA. This will also serve as a check on individual novice mentors to ensure that they fulfill the obligations expected of them and do not reflect badly on the committee as a whole. Secondly, the program will seek to integrate the other aspects of APDA into its projects as much as possible; for example, we will invite APDA board members to write guest articles for the website. This will complement novices’ transition into the social sphere of APDA and make them more fluent while interacting with varsity debaters. It is important that the novice mentor program serve not as an insulated bubble of varsities willing to help novices in isolated cases, but rather as a bridge between incoming novices and the rest of APDA. Ultimately, while competing and improving in debate is certainly fun, what will keep novices coming back to APDA are the people they will meet.


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Financial Summary

Overview This financial report of The American Parliamentary Debate Association, Inc. was written to:

(a) Publicize financial information in compliance with standard non-profit reporting practices (b) Chart the financial history of the organization for purposes of institutional memory (c) Project expenses and revenue to assess the short-term financial standing of the league (d) Create a standard of transparency to allow the body to make informed decisions

This report details 2011-2012 FY financial information and 2012-2013 budget projections, as well as some historical data about league finances and relevant background information. 2011-2012 Fiscal Year For tax and accounting purposes, non-profits may file based on a calendar year system or a different, twelve-month fiscal year, as dictated in the articles of incorporation or organizational by-laws. APDA’s by-laws determine that the fiscal year begins on June 1 and ends on May 31. Although the 2011-2012 statement of activities indicates a change in net assets of a loss of $692.75, this figure does not reflect dues and unopposed tax payments made after the end of the fiscal year, but covering debts owed from this past debate season. Including those numbers in the 2011-2012 statement of activities would have given APDA a profit of $368.25, even after increased discretionary spending on alumni travel to the National Championship. Because the assets of APDA, Inc. total below $25,000, the corporation is not required to file a full Form 990 with the IRS. It is, however, required to file a Form 990-N e-Postcard annually within five months (but not before the end of) each fiscal year in order to maintain tax-exempt status as per legislation passed in 2006. Failure to file for any three-year period after 2006 would result in an automatic forfeiture of tax-exempt status. This year, the e-Postcard was filed with and accepted by the IRS on June 9, 2012.


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The American Parliamentary Debate Association, Inc. Statement of Activities For the fiscal year ended May 31, 2012

Unrestricted Temporarily Restricted

Permanently Restricted Total

REVENUE Membership Dues $2310.00 — — $2310.00 Unopposed Tax Revenue $679.00 — — $679.00 Donations — — — 0.00 Sponsorships and Grants — — — 0.00 Other — — — 0.00 $2989.00 — — $2989.00 Net assets released from restrictions — — — — EXPENSES League Awards $2731.50 — — $2731.50 Website Fees $248.84 — — $248.84 Alumni Judge Travel $500.00 — — $500.00 Other $201.41 — — $201.41 $3681.75 — — $3681.75 Change in net assets ($692.75) — — ($692.75)

Net assets, beginning of year $2493.78 — — $2493.78 Net assets, end of year $1801.03 — — $1801.03


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2012-2013 Fiscal Year The budget below estimates revenue for this year, as well as necessary expenses. It exists to advise the body about costs that should be taken as fixed, but does not serve as a strict budget or include discretionary expenses that are made by the body. The American Parliamentary Debate Association, Inc. Preliminary Budget For the fiscal year ended May 31, 2013 2011-2012

Actuals 2012-2013 Estimates

2012-2013 Actuals1

REVENUE Membership Dues $2310.00 $2400.00 $620.00 Unopposed Tax Revenue $679.00 1000.002 $441.00 Donations — — — Sponsorships and Grants — — — Other — — — TOTAL $2989.00 $3400.00 $1061.00 EXPENSES League Awards $2731.50 $2700.00 — Website Fees $248.84 $139.39 — Alumni Judge Travel $500.00 — — Other $201.41 $120.003 — TOTAL $3681.75 $2959.39 —

NET TOTAL ($692.75) $440.61 $1061.00

1 Current through the APDA Meeting at Johns Hopkins on September 7, 2012. Includes 2011-2012 payments made after May 31, 2012 2 Based on collection of the full tax. Given inconsistent collection in past years, the board should vote to clarify a policy 3 Includes projected printing costs for The Clash and the APDA Alumni Newsletter


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Financial History The American Parliamentary Debate Association, Inc. was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the State of New York on September 18, 1999. The earliest financial records for the organization date to May 1999, when APDA opened its first checking account with Sovereign Bank. The current account with Wells Fargo was opened in April 2005. Net Assets over Time

PayPal APDA’s assets are held almost entirely in a Wells Fargo checking account. However, the league also has $222.94 in a PayPal account. Two donations were made to the league in early September 2008. The account was subsequently frozen beginning in mid-September 2008, so APDA was unable to accept donations through the PayPal button on the website or withdraw funds from the account. PayPal required that APDA, Inc. prove its tax-exempt status by submitting copies of several documents. On August 25, 2011, the restrictions on the account were lifted after the relevant files were sent and the funds will be withdrawn later in the year to be deposited in the Wells Fargo account along with any donations APDA may receive. Conclusion An updated statement of activities may be publicized later in the fiscal year if the board’s activity warrants such an update. Please e-mail [email protected] with questions or suggestions.


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Appendices APDA Meeting Minutes West Point Nationals 2011 The body convened at West Point on Sunday, April 24:

1. Josh Morrison was elected Trustee Johns Hopkins The body convened at Johns Hopkins on September 9, 2011:

1. Ashley welcomed the league back to 2011-2012 season. Further orientation material is available in new issue of “The Clash.”

2. Representatives provided committee updates. Josh Zoffer spoke for the Novice Mentor committee. Alison Kennedy spoke on behalf of the Expansion Committee. Coulter King spoke on behalf of the Alumni Committee.

3. Financial update provided by Coulter King. Details and materials discussing finances will soon be made available.

4. Unopposed tax update provided by Coulter King. The league didn’t collect revenue from this last year, but the item is still in the by-laws.

5. Tab observer policy update provided by Alex Rosenberg. The board will soon publish its guidelines for tab observer submissions.

6. The body approved Wesleyan Nationals bid and tab staff. 7. Discretion was urged when posting on public forum. 8. Agenda was amended at the meeting by a 2/3 vote. Motions to reopen the schedule were

discussed. Colin Etnire proposed adding Williams College to the Oct. 14-15 weekend of the fall, currently occupied by Vassar and UMCP. Vassar was not in attendance. Michelle Groce represented UMCP.

9. Motion to open the schedule failed and the schedule remains unchanged. Harvard The body convened at Harvard on October 7, 2011:

1. Nicky Bell spoke concerning the goals and projects of the Equity Committee. 2. Coulter King announced that the league will submit a concept paper for an Open Society

Foundations grant by next week and will publish the alumni newsletter at GW. 3. Ashley Woods’ by-laws amendment concerning performance-based pay for coaches in the

Nationals tab room passed. 4. Motion to open the schedule passed. Middlebury was moved from January 6-7 to April 6-7,

agreeing to cap at 40 teams.


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Rutgers The body convened at Rutgers on February 17, 2012:

1. Coulter asked for dues to be paid on time, reminding the body that if not paid by the deadlines outlined on the forum, teams could lose their vote at Elections and Nationals.

2. The body considered and passed the best practice proposed by Reid. The best practice’s language is as follows: “Non-title tournaments with a tab observer ought offer debaters the option of verbally justifying tab scratches to the tab observer at some point prior to round 1. Tournaments without a tab observer ought likewise give the option of verbal justification to an individual chosen by the tournament. That person ought not be the person on whom the tab scratch is being justified.”

3. The Fall 2012 Schedule was considered and passed. Boston University The body convened at Boston University on March 23, 2012:

1. The body approved by unanimous consent that APDA pledge $500 to Wesleyan to cover travel reimbursements for alumni attending the National Championship.

2. The body proceeded to elections, electing the board for the 2012-2013 season.

Wesleyan Nationals 2012 The body convened at Wesleyan from April 20-22, 2012:

1. The body approved and passed a Spring 2013 schedule. 2. The body voted to approve the Harris/Lotito, or Lotito/Harris timing method as a best

practice: “All sanctioned APDA tournaments ought implement the use of Lotito/Harris timing in all rounds. ‘Lotito/Harris timing’ shall be defined as a timing structure in which the 7-minute clock during the Prime Minister Constructive speech shall not begin until the argumentative portion of the speech has commenced. Case construct, Points Of Clarification (if applicable), and the opposition’s side selection period (in the event of an opp-choice case) shall all be untimed during the Prime Minister Constructive speech.”

3. Kyle Bean was elected as trustee through a voice vote. 4. There was a brief discussion of Canada’s request that we amend the MOU for NorthAms.

Though no formal vote was conducted, there were no objections to requiring that debaters compete for the school at which they are “primarily enrolled” at the North American National Championships.


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2011-2012 Schedule Dates School September 9-10 Johns Hopkins (APDA Meeting) September 16-17 Smith & William and Mary I September 23-24 Columbia September 30-31 Boston University (Novice) & Swarthmore (Novice) October 7-8 Harvard (APDA Meeting) October 14-15 UMCP & Vassar October 21-22 Syracuse & Yale (IV) October 28-29 Brown & Penn November 4-5 American (Pro-Am) & Northeastern (Pro-Am) November 11-12 George Washington I (APDA Meeting) November 18-19 Fordham & Wesleyan December 2-3 Tufts & UMBC January 6-7 Williams January 13-14 Dartmouth January 20-21 Stanford January 27-29 North American Debating Championship (Hart House) February 3-4 Bryn Mawr & NYU February 10-11 Brandeis & The College of New Jersey February 17-18 Rutgers (APDA Meeting) February 24-25 Princeton & UConn March 2-3 PC & West Point March 9-10 Bates & Franklin and Marshall March 16-17 MIT & William and Mary II March 23-24 Boston University (APDA Elections) March 30-31 Catholic University & Swarthmore & University of Chicago April 6-7 Cornell & Middlebury & University of Virginia April 13-14 Amherst & George Washington II April 20-22 National Championship (Wesleyan)


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2012-2013 Schedule Dates School September 7-8 Johns Hopkins (APDA Meeting) September 14-15 Smith & William and Mary I September 21-22 Columbia & University of Pittsburgh September 28-29 Boston University (Novice) & Swarthmore (Novice) October 5-6 Harvard (APDA Meeting) October 12-13 Mount Holyoke & UMCP October 19-20 Yale (IV) October 26-27 Brown & UMBC November 2-3 American (Pro-Am) & Northeastern (Pro-Am) November 9-10 George Washington I (APDA Meeting) November 16-17 Fordham & Wesleyan November 30-31 Penn & Tufts & Vassar January 11-12 Dartmouth January 18-19 George Washington II & Middlebury January 25-27 North American Debating Championship (Syracuse) February 1-2 Amherst & The College of New Jersey February 8-9 NYU & Wellesley February 15-16 Princeton (APDA Meeting) February 22-23 Franklin and Marshall & Providence College & University of Albany March 1-2 MIT & West Point March 8-9 Rutgers & Stanford March 15-16 Bates & William and Mary II March 22-23 Boston University (APDA Elections) March 29-30 Cornell & Swarthmore & UConn April 5-6 Brandeis & University of Virginia April 12-13 Bryn Mawr & University of Chicago & Williams April 19-21 National Championship (UMCP)

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