AFA 2012

American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament Committee Meeting

Embassy Suites Hotel -- Spring Lake Room A

San Marcos, Texas

9:00-11:45 a.m. & 1-4:30 p.m.

April 6, 2012

Present:

Committee Members: Peter Pober (Chair), Lee Mayfield (Vice-Chair), Larry Schnoor (Tournament Director), Karen Morris (Secretary), David Worth (Webmaster), Frank Thompson (Chair Emeritus), Leah White (Chair, Board of Trustees), Craig Brown (D3), Susan Collie (D4), Richard Paine-Outgoing (D5), Megan Koch-Incoming (D5), Dawn Lowry (D6), Ken Young (D7), Nick Butler (D9), Joel Hefling (Central Rep), Kellie Roberts (Southern Rep), Dave Gaer (Western Rep), M'Liss Hindman (CC Rep)

Joined Later: William Igbokwe (Outgoing Student Rep), Ryan Cashman (Outgoing Student Rep), Michael Kelley (Incoming Student Rep), Nicole Bright (Incoming Student Rep)

Guests: Wayne Kraemer (Tournament Host), Trish Silva (Bid for 2014)

Minutes

Pober called the meeting to order 9:01am and asked for a motion to approve the minutes from November 2011. Helfling moved and Gaer seconded. Helfling asked that the minutes be proofread one final time before sending them to the website. Morris agreed.

Officer Reports

*AFA-NIET Committee Chair –Pober reported that he had gotten a few waivers and he had granted them. He explained he had one situation in which neglect caused 4 ghost legs to be granted. 4 of the 6 finalists should not have been in the final round. Pober encourages us to make sure we, as tournament hosts, double check our tabulation work.

*Vice Chair—Mayfield reported that he has been working with the student reps as he hopes communication can be better for this upcoming year.

*Board of Trustees –White says the Board will come back with a proposal later in the meeting. White asked Schnoor for a spoken treasurer report as she doesn�t have a written one for the committee. Schnoor stated, �We have money.�

*Chair Emeritus—Thompson reported no research projects present at this AFA-NIET.

*Tournament Director—Schnoor said that everything is ready for us. He said he has a few last minutes judge drops but luckily has some replacements. He has hopes for very few announcements at the Opening Assembly. He said ballot labels are being printed as we speak with changes. He also reported that we had 1492 slots last year and we have 1949 this year (see AFA-NIET Entries 2012 on Google site). We also have 82 schools in attendance. Schnoor spoke about Monday�s schedule and the fact that we will have quite a few large rooms for rounds and we will drop postings from the balcony.

He reminded us to tell students that lost meal cards would not be replaced. Participants should hold on to the meal card to turn in on Monday for lunch.

*Secretary—Morris said her minutes would stand as her report.

*Webmaster—Worth said he had very little to report. He apologized for some document problems. He plans to do a rebuild of the website over the summer. He will make the links more consistent.

Tournament Host Reports

2012 – Texas State University

Kraemer says TSU-San Marcos is ready for the tournament to begin. He expressed his thanks for the many teams that sent in photographs in the last few weeks for the Opening Assembly slide show. He says the photos will also be in the booklet and that it will also have a color coded map. Competition rooms are in blue and parking garages in purple. Kraemer says he has a key for all classrooms so that we won�t worry about locked rooms on Saturday and Sunday. There will also be water stations by the LBJ and Fighting Stallion Statues. Kraemer gave details for Monday at the hotel:

*Lunch is 11:30-1:30 on Monday.

*Competition rooms are large.

*Appetizers will be served at 5:30 here on Monday.

*A Shuttleque is available for photos.

Kraemer also spoke about campus details:

*Postings on Sunday are outside of LBJ ballrooms at balcony

*Meal cards will have $25.00 to spend on Sat/Sun and 10.00 left for the lunch at the hotel.

*Opening Assembly begins promptly at 7:40 am in Evans (ELA)

*Flowers and Derek Hall will be open at 6:30 am for warm-ups.

*Free parking on Saturday and Sunday. Park in the LBJ and PSPG parking garages.

*LBJ ballroom is where extemp draw is. McCoy is where extemp rounds will occur. *Ballot Table will be Alkek Teaching Theater (ALK) Lobby.

2013 – Hutchinson Community College

Schnoor says he hasn�t made a site visit yet, but he will talk to the host when he arrives in a few days. He doesn�t anticipate any problems. Pober reiterated how excited we are to have a community college hosting for the first time.

2014 Bid—CSU-Long Beach

Silva says the CSU-Long Beach President gives his full support (see letters and bid on the Google site). Silva explains that there are over 50 community colleges in the area of CSU-Long Beach and judges can be pulled from them in addition to the wide range of qualified judges in Southern California. Russell and Silva say they are willing to commit to hosting. Silva spoke about the high turnover rate in leadership at CSLB in the last few years, but assured the committee she and Russel weren�t going anywhere. Butler asked about hotel rates. Silva responded that the hotel room rate is 99.00 at the Holiday Inn (with breakfast included) and the rest of the hotels are willing to work on a rate once they get the commitment from us. Mayfield asked about the rooms on Monday. Silva said would have to go to the Holiday Inn, which is a conference space and has about 5000 square feet of meeting space. Silva wasn�t sure how many rooms this was. Silva said that the meal ticket would have about $37.00 per card. She also reminded us that airfare is relatively cheap to Long Beach and the airport is only 5 minutes from the school and 2 minutes from the Holiday Inn. Peter asked for other questions.

2014 Bid—Arizona State University

Butler welcomed the healthy competition for bids for 2014. ASU has never hosted AFA and is excited to do so. Butler said ASU is a large campus with a large airport. Walking from hotels to campus is an option. The tournament hotel would be the Twin Palms at a rate of $99.00 (includes breakfast). Butler provided a map for the Memorial Union with his bid (on Google site). Butler says that they can do meal cards, but it would be better if students make their own meal arrangements since there are so many food options. Young asked who would be host: Nick Butler or Adam Symonds. Butler said it would be Symonds.

Closed Meeting for Discussion of Bids.

Mayfield Moved we vote and Gaer Seconded.

Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona will be the host for 2014 AFA-NIET.

Committee Reports

*AFA-NIET Student Committee --Mayfield said we would wait for the students to give this report. They were still meeting but would be joining us shortly.

*Distinguished Service Committee—Mayfield reported there were no nominations.

*New Coach Award—Mayfield said that the New Coach Committee asked all three nominators to nominate again. He reminded us that we expanded the years of service from 5 to 7 years.

*Research—Thompson had no report.

*Awards—Schnoor says awards are in San Marcos now. We might need to look into finding another place to get awards if Midwest isn�t able to keep costs consistent. They have been doing a fine job, but we should always be prepared.

*All-American IE Team—Roberts reported that the committee had 17 nominations and only one district didn't have any nominations. The presentation will be made during the Opening Assembly.

*Manchester Scholar Series—Mayfield said there were nominations but the committee didn't award this year. He asked us to go back to the districts and encourage them to submit. Mayfield asked if past winners had presented their research. Schnoor said the problem was finding time for research presentations. At the AFA-NIET at KSU, we set aside time but it was poorly attended. The presentation at the AFA-NIET in Florida had the same problem. Pober said we never posted the research on the AFA-NIET Website. He asked if this could be an option. Larry reminded that if the research was submitted for publication there might be a conflict. Paine asked if the research could be submitted as an NCA panel. White said maybe we could have a voice-over presentation on the website instead of the research. They could just talk about it and link it to the website. Koch suggested we make a poster for the AFA-NIET. Mayfield will take all of these ideas under advisement.

*Ad Hoc Committee on Future Planning in Forensics—Paine said nothing new to report at this time.

*Ad Hoc Committee on Charter Bylaws Updates—Morris asked if the updated version of the constitution was on the website. Morris asked permission for this committee to look at the Charter (last amended in 1978) and prepare wording to include the office of Vice Chair as it is missing from the Charter at this point. Pober agreed this could be the charge of this committee.

*Ad Hoc Committee on External Posting of Speeches and Performances –Roberts said her committee discussed the concept of endorsing Loudspeaker. The committee recommends that at this point the AFA-NIET does not endorse this new organization.

*Ad Hoc Committee-History Project. (Young is only member of committee but eventually will be joined by Brown, Worth, Lowry, White, and Roberts). Young explained origin of committee. Young was approached by Pober to see if he could find out how many programs had attended and when they had attended and how long attended AFA-NIET. Larry sent school attended list and Young is putting it all in spreadsheet. He is working on this and will have it for us by November. Young said we are missing some years, but Larry assured that he still has some. Young says this brings up how we put the list of attendees in the booklet. Schnoor says that if we identify the names with schools then it just identifies the school before we judge them. If names are put in the booklet with program and with director names, Young thinks this would be awesome for the history of the individual programs. Pober explained he was thinking ahead to the next 35 years and wanted this information. He was also thinking about budget cuts and how this information could help some of the programs if it was archived. Pober thought we would announce at the Awards Assembly the schools who have attended 10, 15, 20 years etc. We would encourage Worth as webmaster to get involved with this. Pober also wants to talk to White as Board of Trustees to come up with small trinket for those schools. Schnoor says there are only 6 schools that have been to all AFA-NIET. Pober also said that we should have directors name for each program. Mayfield said we could also look at tabs afterward and get names with schools. White said she has archival items from Larry's basement and would be willing to set up a joint AFA-NIET and Mankato achive. Peter asked White to set up the archive this summer.

Old Business

*Selection Process for National Student Representatives—Igbokwe and Cashman joined the meeting with the two new Student Representatives: Michael Tulley from Kansas State University and Nicole Bright from Belmont College. Cashman read the following proposal to the committee:

Student National Representative Election Process

Objective: Amend the election process of selecting a National Student Representative for the AFA-NIET.

Rationale: The student representatives feel the criterion of the selection process has been too vague in the past. So to uphold the integrity of the need of a student liaison, and insuring expertise, passion, and commitment to the position, a more concrete set of requirements is needed.

Proposal: Students wanting to be nominated for the position of the AFA-NIET student representative should comprise the following criteria:

� MUST be a district representative

� MUST attend the AFA-NIET student meeting

� Recognition and commitment to attend NCA and other responsibilities.

� MUST contain a personal statement, no longer than a page, describing how the nominated will make sure the integrity of their position will be fulfilled.

� MUST turn in a resume showing leadership both within and outside of forensics.

� MUST Post personal statement and resume to current National Student Representatives.

Finally, a contract must be signed and dated by the student and overseer of respectful forensic team. The contract will be on the student Google site. A preliminary vote will take place before the student meeting (via district rep site) BY THE STUDENTS to narrow the nominations to two. Each district gets two votes. All other proceedings (speech, vote, etc) will take place during the meeting. The liaison of the student representatives that year will oversee the contract applicants and help enforce the aforementioned requirements.

White asked if they still included the coaches� support. Igbokwe says that is part of the financial backing (from institution). Young asks how students feel about this. Cashman says students didn't want coach approval and also letter of recommendation on the site for all to see. The resume is better. Koch says that it is a courtesy to the coach to know before they are elected. Mayfield says we could handle this with a signature of the coach but not a letter of recommendation. Cashman says that it could be added (see above highlighted sentence). Pober asked if we could have this motion. Cashman moved to have proposal. Mayfield seconded.

New Student Representative Election Process PASSED (on the Google site).

Pober praised the student handbook that Student Representative Zani made a few years back and asked that it be put on the student Google site. Cashman says it is on the website. Pober reminded the student representatives to use the Vice Chair to help. Mayfield will enforce that those running have met the criteria. Mayfield asked that the students invite himself, Pober and Morris to the student Google site.

*AFA Membership--White talked about how she was approached by the members of the AFA about institutional membership vs. individual memberships. There was a motion at the AFA business meeting basically saying that if you attended the AFA-NIET then you should have either an institutional or individual membership. See motion below (also on the Google site).

Background for the Motion:

Immediately prior to the 2011 NCA NIET-Committee Meeting, the Board of Trustees was approached by representatives of AFA leadership regarding AFA Memberships. The issue had been discussed at the AFA Finance Committee meeting where it was noted that not all affiliate organizations require AFA memberships as a condition for national tournament entry. Given that the Board of Trustees was presented with the issue with no time to discuss prior to the NIET-Committee Meeting, no formal motion was made at that time. The issue was again discussed at the AFA Business Meeting, both in the Finance Committee Report and also as a motion under New Business presented by Dan Cronn-Mills. The motion was discussed and failed.

Justification:

AFA-NIET is less represented in the AFA than NDT or other programs. During the NCA discussions on this issue, it was determined that the NDT requires AFA membership for National Tournament participation, but the NIET does not have a comparable requirement. The Board of Trustees believes it is important the NIET also support our parent organization. The AFA provides financial support for events and services relevant to the AFA-NIET.

Motion:

All schools entered at the AFA-NIET are required to have an institutional membership to the American Forensic Association. This requirement may also be met if a faculty or staff representative from the institution has an individual membership. If the program is completely free of any staff supervision, then one student can take out a student membership. Programs with severe financial constraints may apply to the NIET Chair for a waiver.

Pober reminded us that since this motion comes from the board, it doesn't need second. Young asked if this is on top of the AFA-NIET dues (40.00 per year). White said it would be one more registration step. Schnoor put an AFA membership form (with types of membership and costs) into every school packet. Schnoor agreed that we are not as represented as debate. Dan Cronn Mills is one of the only IE people to be in office. Pober said he was concerned. He is glad the committee was considerate of students and the proviso in case they couldn�t afford to pay. We believe the student fee is $25.00 and individual membership is $75.00. Hefling is concerned that the faculty member with the membership may not have connection with forensics. Schnoor reported that Jim Pratt said it wouldn't be that difficult to document who is a member and associated with schools. Thompson reminded us that several years ago a motion was passed that stated that you had to be a member of AFA if you are on the AFA-NIET Council. And so this motion supports the previous policy. Butler wanted to know if the AFA-NIET would see the money directly. Schnoor said we get support because they are a parent organization. Pober said it allows for student programs. Morris asked if we could pay dues at tournament. Roberts asked if they have to go to website or if could pay at districts. Schnoor affirmed. Koch asked if it is on the form. Gaer informed us that if you were not a member the previous year then you don't get a form. Koch said we could make sure as district chairs that they get that form. Paine wanted to know what we do to make sure the other programs that aren't so invested are on board. In other words, how do we sell it? Brown said district dues are state and the AFA dues are federal tax. Brown said you are getting something out of it and that's why they are dues. Mayfield said this isn't an old issue; he remembers this issue from when he was district chair. Koch asked how we find out if faculty is a member. Pober said there is membership list. Young said this could help you find support in your department if there are members you weren�t aware of. White said our entry form could mirror NFA. Worth asked if we could have justification on the invitation. White agreed.

Motion by the Board of Trustees and accepted by the Committee.

*NIET Committee Gmail Group—Morris said she still needed Gmail or AOL addresses from Brown/Roberts/Hindman/Thompson. She will also get addresses from Koch and the new student representatives. She encouraged members to add any handouts they may have that could be of use to the committee. Finally, she asked that district chairs update their pages with student names and district committee names.

*Speechwire Discussion –Pober says Stewart is here at his own expense so that he can shadow and make a dummy tournament. Kraemer gave him a complimentary hotel room. Gaer shared his concern that the program tabs section-by-section, not by the whole preliminary round. Koch asked if we were looking at other vendors. Pober said we could look at other vendors.

New Business

*Handbook for District Chairs—Schnoor attended an NCA panel on district chairs and has now provided a handbook from that panel that Mayfield put together. Schnoor updated the handbook and provided us a copy (on the Google site). Schnoor thanked Brown for editing. Lowry had asked questions this year and Larry said this handout would have been so helpful. Schnoor encouraged us to pass this on to other district chairs. Thompson asked if a chair needed to be a school that had a forensics program. Pober said each district constitution would have this information.

*Extemp Filing—Igbokwe said the students brought up how time consuming extemp filing has become. The students were curious about the ramifications of allowing extempers to use the internet for extempprep. This would eliminate files and put all schools on an even playing field as the only source they would have to write their speeches at the tournament would be what they researched on the internet in 30 minutes. Pober appointed an Ad Hoc Committee to investigate internet use at Tournaments. He asked Craig Brown to head this committee and report back in November. Brown will be joined by Schnoor, Morris and Bright.

*Elections and Appointments

Vice Chair (2-year term): Schnoor nominated Mayfield. Collie seconded and then moved to close nominations. Young seconded. Mayfield was voted in by proclamation.

Tournament Director (1-year term):

Collie nominated Schnoor. Thompson seconded and moved to close nominations.

Mayfield seconded the motion. Schnoor was elected Tournament Director for another year.

Board of Trustees Member (5-year term recommended by NIET Chair)

White was asked by Pober. White agreed and will serve until 2017.

**Adjournment—Mayfield moved to adjourn, Collie seconded the motion. Meeting adjourned at 11:21 am.