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Your generous support set the wheels in motion for a wildly successful fall semester. All three squads took top places at nearly every competition so far, from novice to varsity. We'll give you a few highlights, but for details results follow our teams at http://forensics.cornell.edu.
Speech
Co-Captains Julia Montejo and Corey Shapiro each took a first place Extemporaneous speaking in back-to-back tournaments at West Chester and James Madison. Freshmen Brianna Mims and Niyyah Barber both made it to finals at their very first tournament in Dramatic Interpretation and Prose Interpretation, respectively.
Policy
Georgie State JV Seminifalists: Lauren Kelly & Nicholas Tilmes
Rutgers Novice Quarterfinalists: Nicholas Curcio & Samir Salih
Mary Washington Varsity Quartefinalists: Gabriella Knight & David Rooney Novice Quarterfinalists: Samir Salih & Tony Zhou Novice Quarterfinalists: Sneha Kabaria & Shara Safer Top Novice Speaker: Shara Safer 2nd Novice Speaker: Sneha Kabaria
U.S. Military Academy at West Point JV Champions: Lauren Luciani & Nicholas Tilmes JV Quarterfinalists: Lauren Kelly & Andrew Kim made it to junior-varsity quarterfinals Novice Champions & Perfect Record: Shara Safer & Tony Zhou Novice Semifinalists: Nicholas Curcio and Samir Salih 5th JV Speaker: Nicholas Tilmes Top Novice Speaker: Shara Safer 2nd Novice Speaker: Tony Zhou
Worlds
Yale University Finalists (2nd year in a row): EnTing Lee and Adnan Muttalib Quarterfinalists: Ben Leff and Jennifer Kim
Hart House at the University of Toronto Top Speaker: EnTing Lee 4th Speaker: Adnan Muttalib Semifinalists Adnan Muttalib and EnTing Lee Semifinalists Alex Klein and Rubin Danberg-Biggs Quarterfinalists Jennifer Kim and Ben Leff Quarterfinalists Rebecca Blair and Richard Chen
Hobart William Smith Fall Classic 2nd Novice Speaker: Jack Robbins Semifinalists: Kevin Kay and Dan Stoyell Novice Finalist: Hamed Rabeh and Jack Robbins Novice Finalist: Myra Gupta and Stewart Aslan
Huber Debates at University of Vermont Quarterfinalists: Brittany Garcia and Abhiroop Lohia Quarterfinalists: Kevin Kay and Rebecca Blair Quarterfinalists: Safwan Jalal and Dan Stoyell
Cambridge University IV Quarterfinalists: Adnan Muttalib and EnTing Lee
We are so proud of our students this semester, and we know that your encouragement and support has been crucial to their success. This list reveals only a snapshot of what the CSDS has been up to over the past few months. Between our outreach programs, prison debate initiative and public debates on campus, our society is constantly working to live up to legacy built over many generations of Cornellians.
While most of our students will be taking a break from competition until next semester, a small contingent of debaters will head to a few elite competitions before school resumes. Worlds Squad: Adnan Muttalib and EnTing Lee, as well as Jen Kim and Ben Leff will represent Cornell at the World Universities Debating Championship in Thessaloniki, Greece from December 28 - January 4. Rubin Danberg Biggs will also attend as an adjudicator.
Policy Squad: Shara Safer and Samir Salih, Lauren Luciani and Nick Tilmes, Lauren Kelly and William Yoon, as well as Gabby Knight and Shohini Kundu will all be competing in back-to-back tournaments at the U.S. Naval Academy and at Wichita State in late January.
As soon as school resumes all three squads will hit the ground running, with the Speech team heading to the New York State Championships where we are entered in all 11 Individual Events on February 6-7. The following weekend marks the return of the long-running Cornell Tournament of Love Worlds & Policy debate tournaments.
Thank you all for your truly remarkable support, we are deeply honored to have such an expansive network of family, friends and alumni.
The Policy Debate Team had their most successful tournament in CSDS history this past weekend at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point!
The Novice Policy debaters are on a roll, coming off great success at Mary Washington, Nick Curcio and Samir Salih finished as Semi-Finalists, honorably stepping aside when slotted to face off against Cornell's Shara Safer and Tony Zhou. Nick and Samir's sacrifice was worth it in the end, when Shara and Tony went on to the win the Final and become Novice Tournament Champions.
The JV Policy debaters had equally impressive success. Lauren Kelley and Andrew Kim finished strong as Quarterfinalists, while Lauren Luciani and Nicholas Tilmes dominated their out-rounds, not dropping a single ballot from Octofinals to Finals, becoming JV Tournament Champions.
Shara was Top Novice Speaker while Tony was 2nd, Nicholas finished as 5th JV Speaker and Lauren L. was 7th.
The team picked up 35 CEDA Points in the process, pushing up our regional and national ranking!
Miss our last matching gift challenge? Another generous Cornell Alumnus has announced their $2,500 challenge! Starting today, all gifts of will be matched by Debate Alumnus Bob Hoyt, ILR '86 up to a total of $2,500. Meet the Hoyt Challenge today!
CSDS has seen some unprecedented success this October, placing at every competition we've attended this month in all three formats. This is an excellent start to the season and these tournaments have been excellent preparation for championship tournaments in the coming months.
The Speech team placed two varsity competitors at the Carolyn Keefe Memorial Forensics Tournament at West Chester University last weekend. Corey Shapiro was 3rd in Impromptu and 3rd in Extemporaneous, while Julia Montejo was 5th in Impromptu. Congrats Julia and Corey!!
The Policy team saw success in Varsity and Novice divisions at the University of Mary Washington tournament last weekend. Gabby Knight and David Rooney advanced to Varisty Quarterfinals, Samir Salih and Tony Zhou were Novice Semifinalists, while Sneha Kabaria and Shara Safer were Novice Quarterfinalists. Our Novices dominated the Novice the speaker rankings - with Shara Safer taking Top Speaker, Sneha Kabaria taking 2nd, Tony Zhou taking 7th and Samir Salih taking 12th.
The Worlds team had their most successful weekend thus far at the 2015 Hart House IV at the University of Toronto. CSDS took a total of 6 teams to the competition, 4 of which broke to open Quarterfinals. Rebecca Blair and Richard Chen as well as Jennifer Kim and Ben Leff finished as Quarterfinalists, while EnTing Lee and Adnan Muttalib as well as Alex Klein and Rubin Danberg-Biggs finished as Semifinalists. Cornell had the most teams out of any institution in the elimination rounds, managing to make up a 1/4 of the field!
Adnan Muttalib was the 6th-best ranked speaker, while EnTing Lee was named Top Speaker!
For Adnan & Enting as well as Jen & Ben, this is the second highly competitive tournament where they've reached elimination rounds this season! Congrats!
This past weekend we traveled to Yale University with 8 teams for one of the most competition tournaments of the year.
Cornell's EnTing Lee and Adnan Muttalib finished preliminary rounds in 6th place out of 150 teams, and made it through two grueling elimination rounds to compete in the Grand Final against Stanford, University of Toronto and Queens University.
Adnan and EnTing ultimately lost on a 4-1 split decision to UofT, but beat out Stanford and Queens in the judges discussion.
CSDS President Jennifer Kim and her partner Ben Leff finished prelims in 14th place out of 150 teams and made it to the Quarterfinals. Due to seeding, Jen and Ben had to face Adnan and Enting as well as University College Dublin and Western/Toronto Hybrid. Jen and Ben dropped to both opposition teams, UCD and Adnan and Enting.
This was a great success for our Worlds program and just a preview of the good things to come this year!
Covers registration fees for two Speech competitors or one Debate partnership.
Fund transportation and accommodation for one Policy Debate team.
Cover airfare for one Speech or Worlds Debate competitor heading to Nationals.
Send half of the Policy Debate Novices to the Novice National Championship.
Send an entire novice or varsity squad to their national championship tournament.