NDCA Board Meeting – Emory – Jan. 30, 2021
Present – Brian, Kaz, Kevin, Lauren, Rosie, Scott, Shane, Shunta, Shree
Called to Order at 1:36 p.m. EST
Approval of Previous Minutes – Moved and Seconded
Congrats to Rosie – New Key of Barkley Forum
Tournament Planning
Considerable discussion on the adding of JV and Novice divisions for this year – eventually decided not to add JV divisions, and probably not to add any extra divisions for World Schools. Also discussion of schedule for Novice divisions and about whether the numbers should be limited to allow for a two day schedule.
Also discussion about whether JV divisions would do harm to Varsity numbers.
Then there was considerable discussion about what the overall numbers were likely to look like, given that the tournament is virtual and about whether members might lose slots if there were suddenly many new schools interested in attending, but since most members renew with their tournament registration, defining members before the fees were paid would be difficult, and expecting people to pay membership dues before paying entry fees was seen a complication.
Some board members wanted to keep the JV divisions but they were not added, nor was a second year break-out from the varsity divisions.
There was also speculation on the varsity numbers and what it would me if there were more than 90 entries with more than 500 points.
Brian made a motion to offer only open and novice
Seconded by Lauren
Passed 7-2
There was a brief discussion of capping Divisions at 90 in the Open Divisions and following the 4-3-4 model for the number of rounds per day.
Then there was a discussion of equity officers – and strong interest in getting a person with DEI experience. There was something of a consensus that Dave H. should be making the decisions about equity officers and the rules committee since he is the tournament director.
This evolved into a conversation about whether, after the tournament director chooses the tournament staff, this list of people should be submitted to the board for approval. Shunta had suggestions for the equity officer.
Brian said that the tournament director has the ultimate responsibility and that the equity officer should report to the tournament director, as should all other tournament officials. After the tournament, the board can review the work done by the tournament director. A motion was made supporting the notion that potential equity officers be contacted.
Passed 8-1 – Kristy Thomas, Scott Baker, Chris Vincent
Shunta will reach out to these folks
Dave will look at all of the current rules, especially the PF rules.
Meeting with NFHS -- Brian
Delayed international actors discussion for a future year.
The NDCA should get more involved, in 2017 Aaron Vinson was our rep but we have not been especially active since then until this year at the December meeting.
Brian explained the rather complicated relationship between the NSDA and the NFHS and then described the NFHS Novice caselist process. Brian also said the Federation is making an investment policy debating and materials from $5000 to $60,000 to try to boost policy debate.
Professional Development Conference – 2021 – Health and Wellness -- Brian
Covid brought up a lot of issues: equity concerns and diversity, student retention in general and novice retention in particular, tournaments not get cannibalized, etc. Brian asked where we want the conference to go and suggested a Friday evening to Sunday evening schedule to allow for more breaks and to allow for more impact, with fewer sessions.
Shunta suggested a discussion of the new normal – post Covid and Shane suggested that it would be good to look at what the role is for online debates when face to face tournaments are possible. Brian suggested that this was a time to consider whether we should go back where we were or use this as a time for a restart.
Scott observed that biggest thing he got out of Shane’s conference was that first and second year coaches, felt left out and clueless. He also said we needed to look for ways to revitalize local and regional debate, consolidate online debate, and do other things we can to support debate, which is currently stressed.
A number of board members talked about local efforts to reach out to coaches, and about the difficulties regions were facing even before the pandemic, all situations that have gotten worse instead of better.
There was also a discussion of holding Town Hall sessions on Novices, or other issues like student health. Shane suggested that different board members could take a turn on this, and maybe host regional meetings, as a first step.
Brian observed that we spend 75 minutes of the meeting on tournament and 35 minutes on health of activity, and suggested that we should focus more on professional development.
Since it was nearly the end of our scheduled meeting time, Shunta suggested we table the discussion of whether the tournament should be virtual moving forward until after this year’s tournament. Shunta also said it would be necessary to track down the traveling trophies and that the schools currently possessing them should probably ship them directly to the new recipients.
Unlike most years the board does not plan to meet during tournament. Instead, the board would plan to meet in May, right after conference, unless something comes up sooner which requires a meeting, to review the conference, the tournament and the budget, and to use that meeting to leapfrog into next season.
Respectfully Submitted by Sheryl Kaczmarek