...has gone national!
Finals to be held in Tallahassee on March 27th
The Claude Pepper Oratory Contest has gone national! What started as a Southeastern event has grown to where colleges from around the country are holding their own preliminary rounds. Those winners will compete in the finals in Tallahassee on March 27.
The contest here at Florida State University, which is open to both graduate and undergraduate students, has a deadline to register of February 20. The competition itself will be held later this month.
The FSU winner gets $100 and the runner-up gets $50. In addition, the FSU winner will represent the host campus in the national competition, competing for $4,500 in prizes and a trip to Washington, D.C., to address the U.S. Congress.
The oratory competition began with the Claude Pepper Foundation board, when it was looking for a way to honor the legacy of Pepper, a U.S. senator and congressman. In addition, the board wanted to “foster one of the hallmarks of his five decades of service, which was the application of oratorical excellence to the pressing issues of the day,” said Robert Aronoff, FSU’s director of forensics.
Each year, a topic is selected that reflects both a contemporary public policy issue and an issue that Senator Pepper dealt with while in office. Topics over the past six years have included Social Security, indigent health care, and minimum wage.
This year’s topic deals with U.S. policy toward Cuba: “What should U.S. policy be toward Cuba, and what lessons from our history with Cuba can we apply to other areas of U.S. foreign policy?”
Since its inception six years ago, the competition has grown from an internal FSU competition to a statewide content. This is the first year it has grown beyond Florida.
Preliminary rounds in the finals will be conducted through a “virtual online competition,” Aronoff said. The final round of speeches at each college will be videotaped and sent to Tallahassee, where videos will be distributed to panels of judges. Those speeches will be scored on both content and oratorical skill. The six speakers scoring highest will be brought to Tallahassee for a final round.
“In addition to the inaugural national final round, I am working on putting together some kind of symposium or brown-bag luncheon where we can bring in an expert or high-profile guest to talk about the topic for this year,” Aronoff said.
For more information or to register, contact Aronoff at Robert.Aronoff@comm.fsu.edu.