New scholarships

Miami is now offering a new scholarship to the Institute for 2008. At select tournaments this year we will give a substantial scholarship to the top junior speaker. This weekend at John Carroll we will award the top junior speaker a $300 scholarship. This will also be offered at other tournaments including CCC and more to be named later.

You can also check out our blog miamidebate.blogspot.com for more updates.

We will also be giving EVERY Ohio debater a special in-state scholarship of $100.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at spring.sarah at gmail.com

Dates for Summer 2008

We are excited to announce the dates for the Miami Debate Institute 2008

The Redhawk will run from June 22- July 12

The Oxford Scholars will run from June 22-July 26

Also the brand new Miami Speech Institute will run from June 22 - July 5.

I'm excited and I hope you are too.

Sarah Spring

Thanks for a great birthday!

A quick thanks to everyone who made my birthday a very special day. Thanks for the yummy chocolate cake that required you to be very resourceful since you had to bake it in the dorm! Thanks for all of the cards and Uptown gift cards...the jewels (ask Osahon)...the flowers (ask Elwell)...were all great. I really appreciated all of the sweet notes written in the cards.

My mom will be very glad to hear that you all gave me a special day! :)

Tara

Last Set of Practice Debates

Schedule.... Here!!

Wave 3 is done!

Wave 3 is accomplished and off to the printers. The 5 week scholars produced a variety of arguments and toolboxes --

Soft Power Good/Bad - led by Maffie
DAs to International Actors - led by Fitz
USAID/Delegation - led by Spring
Aff K Toolbox - led by Harrigan
Malthus - led by Tate
AT: Consult CPs - led by Vinson/Jacobs
Impacts File - led by Dale
NGOs - led by Risen

We learned a few things in this wave:

(1) Deutsch does believe that South Africa has nuclear weapons. ADale has the email to prove it.
(2) Tate believes that the Malthus is as terrible as she initially thought.
(3) Georgi believes library time = nap time.
(4) Ironies of all ironies - the Fitz group appeared to be "wheels" off - yes, the horrible, awful pun about wheels (wheelchair) was intended.
(5) None of the 5 week kiddos remembered how to use the library scanning services despite the lecture they had week one.
(6) The new cafe' that serves Starbucks coffee in the basement continues to greatly improve the quality of life of the faculty members.
(7) Adler should never buy a $12 umbrella in the midst of a rainstorm.
(8) The library apparently believes that pints of ice cream are approved "snacks" to be eaten in the building - ask Joe Lance.

Also, Tate will concede to Mapes...although Tate may have had more cards in the file, she had two unfair advantages - a laundry list of cites and the one cite she gave to Mapes ended up not having very many cards. Very worthy opponent!

Tara

Practice Debates Continue

In one of the many practice debates that have occurred, Landsman and Elwell (neg) have taken on Locke and Hobaugh. (aff)

















Later, Casey Harrigan lectured a group on Negative Framework.



Miami Debate Institute attendees left the lecture satisfied!

Tate challenges Mapes

Hey Mapes --

I publically challenge you to have more cards in the Malthus file than I do. Rules are that the cards have to be of high quality, you can't utilize backfiles and you should still try to get some sleep...I don't want to be responsible for any overexhaustion. I still plan on getting sleep.

Do you accept this public challenge? How awful to be publicly humiliated by an old, old woman...

Tara

New Practice Debate Pairings

Here.

Alexis Shklar (Glenview, IL) is being silly right before lecture.

Goodbye to the Redhawk!

Checkout was today for the Redhawk. It was sad to say goodbye! Please email if you need anything at all and we'll see you this fall and next summer at camp. Some pictures at checkout...

Broomball

In the first athletic event in a week where a staff member didn't seriously injure themselves (we love you Dan and Omar...) the Scholars played some broomball today, it was fun I hear. Some pics!

k thx
Sarah

Debate for the Ages! (or is it Aged?!?)

To all those ships out there at sea...

In a blazing fast demo debate, Aimi Hamraie and Eli Jacobs defended a repeal of the Gag Rule for Sub-Saharan Africa. Avery Dale and Aaron Vinson negated advancing a number of arguments including a China CP that also included a number of other planks (arrrrg), the net benefits were a K of the term Sub-Saharan Africa, China Soft Power DA, Spending, and some other jive. There was some debate as to Eli had ever seen a condom, this remained unresolved... The audience overwhelmingly thought the negative prevailed, especially because of the unextended Israel DA or perhaps they won on jokes alone...

Some photographic evidence.

kisses
Sarah

Shaheen and Molinaro Win Three Week Tournament!

Congrats to Scott and Matt for winning the three week tournament. They defeated the worthy opponents of Chris Mair and Delaney Gatz on a 2-1 decision with Ed Lee Dissenting. Congrats to both team for a very good debate. Also, it's worth nothing that 3 of the 4 participants in the final debate were from Ohio, awesome. Here are some pics!

Second Practice Debates are under way

After a yummy lunch at the Shriver Center, students began their second set of practice debates. Tara is watching Osahon Okundaye (Neenah, WI) and Karen Lickteig (Wichita East, KS) defending the revoking of the US gag rule on the Aff versus Aaron Westendorf (Princeton, OH) and Jasmine Gonzalez (Walter Payton, IL) on the Neg. The 1AC had three advantages - reproductive imperialism, civil society, and US human rights credibility. The 1NC came back with T - not government-to-government, Politics (Bush Good - Iraqi withdrawal), the Mbembe K and case arguments.

Tara is wondering if JW will navigate his ship at sea to Ohio so we can have one. Eli Jacobs can be the captain.

Tara

Practice debates for Scholars begin!

Practice debates for the 5-week students started this morning. Tara is watching Danny Mapes and Michael Perbeck from Shawnee Mission East on the Aff take on Adam Adler (Parkway North, MO) and Amy Senders (Westwood, TX) on the Negative.

Mapes/Perbeck are reading the South Africa Medflag Aff with an AIDS advantage and military readiness advantage. Adler/Senders argued T - must be all of SSA, China CP, the Doctor trade-off DA, and China oil DA.

Ready for the 1AR to begin...Mapes is stealing prep time...Adler is making funny robot noises. I am looking out the windows of Upham Hall and there are no ships at sea here in Oxford, OH.

Tara

Seniors finish blitz of evidence in Wave 2

Seniors turned out a high quality set of evidence for Wave 2.

The FTH lab finished the following args the past couple of days:

Topicality
sub-Saharan K/PIC
Exclude Zimbabwe PIC - Mugabe DA, Domestic Politics, Confronting the Evildoer K
Dutch Disease DA
Aid Bad
Lacan K
Japan CP with Soft Power DA

Fun in the dorms!

Dancing...

Happy Birthday AU!

The AU turns 5 today, happy birthday from the Sprisen Lab!

Wave Two -- working hard -- getting it done..

The sprisen lab is working hard completing wave two.. some photographic evidence...

5 week Practice Debate Schedule

Have fun.

Click here
to download schedule.

Disclosure is mandatory and must be full 1NC and 1AC positions given to the opposing team no later than 12 hours prior to the debate.

Bring Practice debate journals to every debate.

Practice debates are underway!

Practice debates for the three week camp are underway and we've been having about two a day with rebuttal redos in the afternoon. The staff has enjoyed this almost as much as the students.

Happy fourth of July!

After more than a week of talking smack, the students finally got to play the staff on the fourth of July. To say that it "wasn't pretty" is pretty generous. The staff won the first game 11-3, the second 11-4, and then the rain came pouring down to save the students from another embarassing defeat.


The kids warm up before the game (too bad it didn't help).


The staff (Maffie, Sarah, Avery, Eli and Ed) shoot around to warm up.


Once Fitz arrives, the staff is good to go.


Finally the game gets underway...