Dear Indiana colleagues,

 

You and your students are cordially invited to compete in the 43rd annual Indiana Forensics Association (IFA) Individual Events Championship and the 14th annual IFA Debate Championship.  This year, our tournament is in-person with Individual Events (speech) competition on Saturday, February 22, 2025, and the Debate competition will offer IPDA-style debate on Sunday, February 23, 2025.  Both tournaments will take place on the Butler University campus.

 

The State of Indiana has a distinguished history of intercollegiate forensic competition. In 1874, six colleges and universities (Asbury, Butler, Hanover, Indiana, Purdue, and Wabash) organized an annual oratory contest.  The winning student qualified to attend the Interstate Oratory Association’s national competition, which began the same year. That contest continues to this day, and our state has claimed 23 national championships.  Presently, the top two speakers in the varsity division of the Persuasive Speaking event at our state tournament qualify to represent the state of Indiana at the Interstate Oratory Association national tournament.

 

For the 2025 Individual Events tournament, we will offer varsity and novice divisions in the eleven speech events sponsored by the National Forensic Association.  Additionally, we will offer one division of competition in two experimental events:  Improvisational Duo and Interviewing.  In debate, competition will feature IPDA-style debate and a novice division will be held if there are sufficient entries. 

 

With entry limitations and a community of helpful coaches from around the state, the IFA tournaments are an ideal setting for students and schools who may be new to the activity.  If your school hasn’t attended an IFA tournament recently or is a student-run program, please let us know and we may be able to waive entry fees. The championships are open to all undergraduate students regardless of major or if their school offers an organized team, and every school in attendance will receive a sweepstakes award.

 

In addition to Individual Events and Debate, the IFA also sponsors a scholarly paper competition for student research in communication or a related discipline.  Students are invited to submit an academic paper concerning any topic related to communication. The paper should reflect significant engagement with an academic discipline such as rhetorical studies, cultural studies, performance studies, or the social scientific study of human communicative behavior. They may come from class, but may not be previously published. The criteria for evaluation include “conception and justification of the project, facility with disciplinary literature, and articulation of a credible scholarly voice.” Any student competing at the State tournament – IE or Debate – are welcome to participate. The maximum is 25 pages, double-spaced. Each team may enter a maximum of three students in the contest. Papers are due by February 10, 2025 at 5:00PM. Please email submissions either as a pdf or word document to Spencer Coile (spencer.coile@bsu.edu). 

 

The IFA also will accept nominations for the Lee Horn Award, which recognizes a student for helping others in the activity, maintaining a positive attitude, and modeling a personal commitment to improve their events. A written nomination is required. Please send written nominations to Spencer Coile (spencer.coile@bsu.edu) as a pdf or word document by Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 5:00pm. Letters will be shared with coaches during the week of the tournament so they may be reviewed before the state association coaches meeting. If you will not be present at the meeting, you can submit your vote to Spencer in advance (one vote per school).

 

AFA rules will govern all eleven traditional individual events.  IPDA rules will govern IPDA.  Entries are due on Speechwire by 5:00PM on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.  Name changes will be accepted until 12:00PM (Noon) on Thursday, February 20, 2025.  

 

EXPERIMENTAL EVENTS:

Improv. Duo (our experimental event for 2024 and 2025) will feature two contestants per entry.  Contestants will be given a prompt and two minutes to prepare a scene of three to five minutes.  Judges may, at their discretion, give time signals.  Students may only enter one improv. duo entry.  Each school may enter up to three improv. duo entries.

 

Interviewing (our experimental event for 2025 and 2026) will feature one preliminary round where their resume will be critiqued and a second preliminary round where they will be interviewed by the judge(s).  Resumes are due to the tournament director by 5:00PM on Tuesday, February 18, 2025 in pdf or word format.  For the interview round, judges will be given a list of suggested questions but they are not limited to the list.

 

We will hold our annual IFA meeting during the lunch hour on Saturday and all speech and debate coaches are invited to attend.  Additional information regarding tournament procedures, entries, deadlines, and rules can be found in the remainder of the invitation.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Greg or Janis.  We look forward to seeing you in February!

 

 

Gregory E. Moser, Esq.

Tournaments Director, Indiana Forensic Association

Assistant Director of Forensics, Butler University

 

Prof. Spencer Coile

President, Indiana Forensic Association

Director of Individual Events, Ball State University

 

(vr24)