Forensics team finishes in top 5, nationals ahead

Mt. Hood’s forensics team registered strong results at two regional speech-and-debate meets held last week, with five students earning a trip to a pair of national competitions this spring.

On Feb. 21, the MHCC team hosted area two- and four-year colleges and universities for the 2014 AFA-NIET District 2 Regional Qualifying Tournament. By day’s end, several Saints ranked high in various categories.

The following day, Mt. Hood traveled to Corvallis and won the first-place Sweepstakes Award for community colleges at the Earl Wells Invitational at Oregon State University.

Within the overall tournament competition, the team finished in the top five.

In the Gresham event, the Saints’ standout was Chris Josi, silver medal winner in Novice IPDA debate. He was the lone MHCC student to advance in both speech and debate divisions, before ultimately bowing out to a Lane Communty College rival on a 2-1 decision.

In so doing, Josi was named Top Novice Speaker from a field of 38 competitors. And yet, he enjoyed the team’s nice showing as much as his own, he said, elaborating on his enthusiasm for the activity.

“You know, that’s a great feeling when you win things,” Josi said about the team’s overall success. He said he was drawn to join the team because he likes “being able to talk real nice, and pretty.”

Those talents are not to be taken lightly, he said.

“Public speaking is something that is so versatile and is becoming more and more of a trained skill,” he said.

Further, a grasp of solid debate technique is “really handy, because not only are you trying to present ways to argue and prove that you’re right, you also have to really listen to your opponent,” Josi said.

“You can directly attack (that person) because you’re going to have an argument where you’re, like, ‘I’m right, you’re wrong,’ but you’re not going to get anywhere with that, unless I listen to (that) whole side,” he said.

By carefully listening, Josi said, “I can pick apart every reason why you’re wrong.”

Ryan Rhoades, assistant coach for the Mt. Hood team, said speech and debate contestants have a “very rigorous” schedule. That includes spending a lot of time researching very controversial political topics that they address.

During competitions, contestants are “either taking a 20-minute break from the last set they just competed in, or they’re running to another round to give another speech on something,” Rhoades said. “Many times they don’t have time to eat their lunch.”

Karasalla Fale, another team member, said her forensics involvement has sharpened her understanding of contemporary events.

Being on the forensics team “helps you stay on top of current issues, to gain more in-depth knowledge, and to really, critically look at policies that our country’s doing, and it gives you a better view,” she said.

In many classes, she said, students get information from a very either Euro-centric or Western-centric worldview.

“In debate, if you can frame your case in a non-Western-centered point of view it gives you a better understanding of global politics,” she said.

The research and improved grasp has helped Fale to write better research papers at school, she noted. “It really gives you an edge in that,” she said.

Josi said that a debate round consists of five topics that could fall “under different umbrellas,” such as a “value” topic, a “fact” topic or a certain policy, which he called his favorite.

The opponents whittle down potential topics to the single issue on which they wish to battle, Josi explained. “The negation will strike first – which one they don’t want to debate – and then the affirmation will strike one. And you keep doing that until you’re left with just one resolution” to debate, he said.

“There’s a technique to that. Some resolutions really do lean (to) one side or the other, so you have to pre-plan how you’re going into it,” Josi said.

The contestants must either affirm or oppose the resolution. They get half an hour to prepare before each round, researching and and jotting down notes to shape their arguments.

Each side states its case, followed by counter-arguments.

“By the end of the debate you get all of these arguments that kind of get punched off and fall through and you drop things,” Josi said. “You don’t need them, you just focus on what’s important so that your side is the strongest side.”

The Mt. Hood team will prepare for two national competitions.

Five members (Josi, Tyler Garcia, Fale, Jennifer Sewell and Ruben Contreras) will represent MHCC and travel to Indianapolis for the PKD National Comprehensive Tournament, March 20-24, hosted by Purdue University. That’s followed by the Phi Rho Pi Community College Championships, held April 7-12 in Denver.