The UNL speech and debate team finished its 144th season with strong performances at two national tournaments.
UNL speech students placed seventh in the nation and first among all teams from the Big Ten competing at the American Forensics Association National Individual Events Tournament (AFA-NIET), April 4-6 at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. Eighty-eight schools and 500 students competed at the tournament. With this win, the speech team placed in the top ten for the sixth straight year and in the top 20 teams for the 19th straight year.
The highlights of the national tournament included junior and Omaha native Grace Solem-Pfeifer placing 4th in two events, After Dinner Speaking and Communication Analysis; senior Daniel Wheaton of Cozad placing 6th in Persuasive Speaking; and first-year student Erin Sheehan of Omaha placing 5th in Communication Analysis. Solem-Pfiefer also finished 13th in the nation in the overall individual sweepstakes. Assistant director of speech and debate and graduate student Amy Arellano received the Outstanding New Coach Award.
“Grace, Erin, Daniel and all the other students who competed in the national tournament are wonderfully dedicated and hardworking students. Their success at the national tournament is a direct reflection of the hundreds of hours they devoted to practice and competitions this season which started back in September,” said Aaron Duncan, UNL speech and debate program director.
Only the top 10 percent of student speakers nationally qualify to compete at the AFA-NIET tournament and only the top 15 percent of those select students advance to elimination rounds at the competition. This year, 19 UNL students qualified for the tournament in 77 different events and 10 students advanced to elimination rounds in 17 different events. All seven UNL competitors in Communication Analysis advanced to elimination rounds, setting a national tournament record for the event.
On April 17-20, UNL’s Debate team competed at the National Forensics Association’s Tournament of Champions (NFA-TC) at Ohio University, and captured 5th place. The debate team was led by senior Christopher Schneider of Omaha, who advanced to the quarterfinal round in Lincoln Douglas Debate. Sophomore Alex Johnson was among the top 32 students at the tournament who advanced to elimination rounds.
“We have a wonderful group of debaters on the team committed to the ideals of argumentation and advocacy,” Duncan said. “Our students grew by leaps and bounds this year. Their success was the product of team culture dedicated to hard work and challenging each other to grow.”
UNL was only one of two teams in the nation to place in the top ten at both AFA-NIET and the NFA-TC.
The Speech and Debate team is part of UNL’s Department of Communication Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. The department explores human communication as it shapes and is shaped by relationships, institutions and societies. Its main areas of expertise are interpersonal and family communication, organizational communication, and rhetoric and public culture.
