Presidential Candidate statement
Hello friends, when I decided to run for president, I made the conscious choice that this wasn’t something that I just wanted to have on my resume or anything like that. Rather,that I wanted to correct the problems that I perceive within the team. That being said, I want to say that I am amenable to change on any of these stances and would be more than happy to talk to any of you about them. That being said let’s get into what I think needs work within the team. First, I think we have a problem with novice retention on the team. I think this problem largely extends from the fact that while APDA sort of does our job for us in having Boston Novice, BU Novice etc in the beginning of the year we don’t do very well in training new novices who join later in the year. For example, we had several debaters consider joining from December-January who never really stuck around because we had this sort of engrained culture and seemed to overlook them whenever they would present themselves. I think the solution to this problem is twofold. First, we have to create some sort of Novice literature that we can easily reproduce and hand out to prospective members such that we can quickly get them up to date and have somewhere they can go to easily answer their questions. Second, I think we need to work on getting the novices more directly involved in meetings faster as sometimes we will have a new member who will show up for 2-3 weeks but no one will actually get them to debate, the longer they wait the harder it will be to integrate. I think so long as we incentivize participation through paying attention to novices as well as encouraging them whenever possible, we will be successful.
Next, I think there is something to be said about the direction of the team competitively. We have done very well this year I think considering the fact that it was basically Derek, myself, and Beecher to begin the year. We have had 2 separate teams break to novice out rounds, and had a number of novice awards spread among, Gwen, Robin, Kenny, etc. With that being said, I think the next step is to form some sort of regular partnership within the team. Now that being said I would have two caveats to this program. First, I would say this is entirely opt in and if you choose to float around the team and debate with different people all the time that is entirely your prerogative. Secondly, I would say these teams are not to be set in stone and that its more than likely one person from a partnership wouldn’t be able to go one weekend or another opening up the ability to either debate with another team member, pro-am with some of our novices next year, or hybrid if they so choose. I think the reason we should implement such a system is that people when they tend to debate together on a more regular basis learn how to argue with one another as well as against the other team. This is primarily important for any long term success as it’s very difficult to just stick two people on a team and tell them to debate effectively with one another. As you get more used to debating with another person you learn how to effectively convey arguments to one another. Simply put, all of the really good teams to this to an extent, from Yale to our friends on Commonwealth Ave. I think it’s time we catch up to the curve. Lastly, I suppose I should illustrate why I think I’m in the best position to run our team in these manners. First, I would say that I think I have a passion for this activity that drives me to debate every weekend and none of that is possible without a good functioning team. At the end of the year including Smith Hybrids, I will have gone to 23
tournaments. This has given me a unique opportunity to not only get to know all of you so well but the league at large. This will allow me to not only effectively mediate any conflicts that may arise within our own team with equity and fairness, but also best convey our interests to the league at large. This is particularly important when amendments come up that may affect our team one way or another at the league level like the “Mariko Amendment” at Princeton. Because I recognized that the passing of the amendment would benefit our team, I spent much of last week lobbying people from around the league such that it would pass at Princeton. Moreover, I think that within our own team dynamic, I will be able to effectively take the interests of the team into account and effectively guide us down whatever road the members of the team may dictate. I really do think I can do a good job for us in the future and kindly ask for your support.