Dear Colleagues,

OSU is busy making plans for the 2nd (and still Non-Annual) Earl Wells Virtual Speakeasy to be held on the interwebs on Saturday-Sunday, February 11-12, 2023. Schools from inside and outside the region can have their students participate in both IEs and IPDA in one weekend. The goal is to provide schools with a full-ish-service “speech and debate” tournament in a convenient, stress-free (we hope!), and virtual two-day tournament format.

The tournament will feature:

• Four preliminary rounds of IPDA debate with two elimination rounds
• Two preliminary and final (entry permitting) rounds of AFA events;
• Top Three Certificates in all events, mailed courtesy of the ever-efficient USPS or emailed in a convient file format;
• Top Two Sweepstakes Awards in 4- and 2-year categories, kept for safe-keeping in our secured vaults until next year’s on-campus tournament (or sent to you via USPS if you pester Mark about it).

This tournament supports the goals of the International Public Debate Association (IPDA), and NFC Code of Ethics. We believe that debate is a public communication event. Our tournament reflects this philosophy.

We hope you’ll join us via SpeechWire and Yaatly this year.

Sincerely,

Mark Porrovecchio, Director of Forensics and Titular Tournament Director

mark.porrovecchio@oregonstate.edu

Tasha Robinson, Assistant Director of Forensics, Virtual Judging Extraordinaire, and Decent Human

robintas@oregonstate.edu