by Alyssa Braver and Kaitlin Kinsella

ATHENS, OH — It was a great weekend for the Lafayette Leopards. Not only did Lafayette’s men’s basketball team knock off No. 1 Bucknell in Patriot League semifinals (on their way to their first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bid since 2000), but the Lafayette Forensics Society also had a successful weekend. Four Lafayette students attended Pi Kappa Delta, a national forensics tournament that took place at Ohio University.

Pi Kappa Delta is the national forensics honorary, and as the oldest collegiate forensics organization, this convention has special significance to many in the forensics community. Lafayette is the PA PHI chapter of Pi Kappa Delta, inaugurated in 2003.  Pi Kappa Delta’s motto is “the art of persuasion, beautiful and just.” 2015 was the 49th convention year of the tournament. While Pi Kappa Delta hosts a tournament every year, only every other year is a convention year. A convention year means that awards of excellence and superior are awarded to the top 30% and 10% in competition, and convention years also include a fancy banquet. This year 75 schools from 30 states attended the tournament. Even the snow, which caused the tournament to start a day late, couldn’t prevent Pi Kappa Delta from being a competitive, educational, and overall fun experience for the Lafayette Speech and Debate Team.

Three debaters traveled to the tournament. This included senior Ryan Monahan (’15) and juniors, Alyssa Braver (’16) and Vanessa Milan (’16). All three competitors did very well in Open Lincoln Douglas Debate, a division in which there were 33 competitors. Ryan Monahan ended up being the third place speaker in the division! Vanessa Milan also did fantastic, as she was the 12th seed in the tournament. While no elimination rounds were held because of the initial snow day, had they occurred, Vanessa would have broken to Octo-finals. Her success did not stop there, as she was also the top speaker in the entire division! Teammate Alyssa Braver also contributed to the team’s success, as she received an award of excellence in debate for being the 10th seed. Overall, Lafayette’s debate accomplishments were quite impressive, especially given the fact that Pi Kappa Delta is a prestigious and national tournament

Every team member that competed at Pi Kappa Delta competed in a speech event: interviewing. At Pi Kappa Delta interviewing is a special speech event consisting of three rounds: the first two rounds you are either an interviewer or an interviewee and the third round is when one’s resume is judged. All four team members competed in interviewing meaning Ryan Monahan made his speech debut. On connection years, Pi Kappa Delta gives out awards to the top 30% of speakers in each event. If a speaker is in the top 11-30% they receive an excellent award and if someone is in the top 10% they receive a superior award.   Alyssa Braver received an excellent award in interviewing.

In addition to interviewing, Lafayette was represented in extemperaneous speaking, persuasion, communication analysis, and informative speaking. Senior Sharon Chen received an excellent award in persuasion and a a superior award in communication analysis. Sharon was 4th in the nation for communication analysis, an impressive performance!

Overall, the Lafayette Forensics Society had a very successful weekend. Ryan Monahan, Vanessa Milan, and Alyssa Braver were inducted into Pi Kappa Delta and senior Sharon Chen returned for her third year.   All four members benefitted greatly from competing at such a national tournament, in addition to making new friends and fun memories. Plus, the cake at the banquet was delicious! Despite the snow and all the rain, Ohio ended up being okay, and the team will again return to the state from March 20-22nd to compete next at Ohio State’s tournament.