Honors students were well represented in Miami University forensics, the speech and debate team, this year, thanks to a newly developed partnership between MU Forensics and the University Honors Program.  Todd Holm who is the director of the 50-member team offered honors forensics courses to encourage honors students to participate on the team and the UHP provided some funding for students to attend the National Novice Tournament in Easton, Pennsylvania.

As Todd noted, “Thanks to the students from the honors classes we are the 2012 National Novice Tournament Champions!!! The honors students contributed significantly to the win.”

The Novice National Tournament was held at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.  While there, the team secured three national championships, as well as several individual awards.  A team of six honors students (Jack Dahm, Janet Gannon, Jenna Fograscher, Joe Kowalski, Corey Mollette, and Alexandria Predota) were crowned Readers Theatre Champions, and several other honors students placed high in individual categories.  Eileen Lane, a senior mass communication major, and Jack Dahm, a sophomore business economics major with a rhetoric/writing minor, took first place in the dramatic duo competition and second in the individual sweepstakes.  Paul Salvado placed fourth in extemporaneous speaking, and Megan Stoll and Kate Schindler placed fifth and sixth, respectively, in oral interpretation.

As Todd Holm put it, “That is an amazing result for students competing at their first tournament ever.” 
The team continued its success at the Comprehensive Nationals that included 61 schools from across the country. Miami forensics won four awards in different sweepstakes categories: fourth place in debate sweepstakes, fifth place in combined speech and debate sweepstakes, sixth place in individual events sweepstakes and was the top Delta Sigma Rho – Tau Kappa Alpha team at the tournament.