October 2013

Dear Colleagues:

We invite you to join us in beautiful Cedar Falls IA for the Ulrich Invitational Debate Tournament. This year we will be hosting Friday Dec 6-Sunday Dec 8, 2013. We will be offering 6 preliminary rounds and elimination rounds. Elimination rounds will occur on campus Sunday. We will offer 6 rounds of competition in open, JV, and novice. We hope that you and your squad will join us in Cedar Falls this December.

You will find many of our traditional amenities at the UNI tournament this year, including:

-Breakfast Saturday and Sunday

-Centralized competition buildings

-Free parking on campus and at the tournament hotel

-Free lunch on Saturday & Sunday afternoon on campus

LOGISTICS!!

There is no hotel block. We are no longer using the Ramada. You can get a cheaper hotel of a similar quality closer to campus.  Below is a list of hotels that are relatively inexpensive and about a mile from campus. 

Comfort Inn and Suites (ask for UNI rate)

7402 Nordic Dr., Cedar Falls, IA 50613

(319) 273-9999

Days Inn Cedar Falls University Plaza

5924 University Ave, Cedar Falls, IA 50613

(319) 266-1222

Clarion Inn University Plaza

5826 University Ave, Cedar Falls, IA 50613

(319) 277-2230

ENTRY INFORMATION As in past years we intend to offer open, junior varsity, and novice division in policy debate. 

We will be using the 2013-14 CEDA-NDT policy topic.

We will allow entry for hybrid teams.  However we will not allow 3 person or maverick teams to enter.  If a team is made maverick due to illness the maverick team will be allowed to compete for 2 total rounds.  If the teammate is unable to return after 2 debates then the maverick team will be dropped from the tournament.  

We will offer 6 preliminary rounds, and an appropriate number of elimination rounds in each division. We will be using the CAT to tabulate and using online ballot entry through the tabroom.com site.

UNI will enter teams in the novice division. These teams will be eligible to clear and win speaker awards.

UNI will enter teams in open and JV, if necessary, to even out divisions. These teams will not be eligible for elimination rounds, but they will be eligible to win speaker awards.

The time limits will be 9-3-6, with 10 minutes of preparation time per team.

Additionally, the tournament also agrees to comply with the underlying principles of CEDA’s Statement on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination and the Statement of Ethical Principles.

Deadline: The entry deadline is Tuesday December 3, at 4:00 pm, CST. Use tabroom.com.

Fees: This year the registration fee will be $90.00 per team. These fees cover meals, building costs, trophies, and hired judging.  

When you register – please indicate the number of vegetarians, vegans, or other dietary needs of your squad. This can be done through the tabroom site.

Judging: Each school is responsible for providing three rounds of judging for each team entered. All judges are committed through the second elimination round, or one round beyond when their team is eliminated (whichever happens later). Judges should be able to cover a school's commitment despite potential scheduling constraints (for example, a judge committed for 6 rounds who restricts him/herself to the JV division is not mathematically useful for all 6 rounds and will not count as an 6 round judge). From the official start time of each round, each judge has 2:30 minutes to make a decision in each preliminary round, and 2:45 minutes in elimination rounds. Start times will be strictly enforced. We will abide by the recommendation of the Council of Tournament Directors relating to judge illness and constraining.  http://tournamentdirectors.wordpress.com/tournament-directors-checklist/

We have a limited pool of hired judges in Cedar Falls/Waterloo, so please try to find someone rather than hiring from us. If you must hire a judge from us, please give us at least two week's advance notice to try to locate someone. Schools will be assessed $40 per uncovered round. If you have extra judges available from your school, please let us know--we will almost certainly hire them for as many rounds as they want to work. We will use a limited judge preference system as entries permit.  Any preferences that we do have will be uniform throughout the three divisions, in accordance with CEDA rules.

We strongly request that all qualified persons attending the tournament make themselves available for at least some judging, both in the preliminary and the elimination rounds.

Preference sheets (ordinals) will be made available through the online entry system. We will make every effort to have strikes go into effect in round one, and guarantee that they will be in effect by round three. All judges at the tournament are expected to render a decision where they indicate one, and only one, team that won the round (did the better job of debating). Judges' ballots not adhering to this principle will be "corrected" by the tab room through use of a coin flip.

We will honor mutuality but make no promises as to preference number, as we have in the past. We will likely have a very tight judge pool and need to maximize the ability to place judges that have high commitments but are not highly preferred.

Elimination rounds: We WILL clear half of the field in each division, as long as those teams have (at least) a .500 record. In order for this to work, all judges must be committed through the first two elimination debates and available to judge during partials.

Awards: Awards will be provided to all teams participating in the elimination rounds, and to the top speakers in each division. Unusual situations: We believe in maximizing the competitive opportunities for eligible students. Thus, if two schools each have an extra debater, we would allow a combined team from two institutions to compete in the preliminary rounds of the tournament, and would allow those individuals to be eligible to receive speaker awards and advance to elimination rounds according to CEDA rules for hybrid teams.

UNI IS SMOKE FREE – We are a smoke free campus. This means you cannot smoke anywhere on campus. You must cross the street behind Lang to find the closest place to smoke. We will have signs up by the doors to remind you of the regulation, as well as providing directions to the nearest legal smoking area. We appreciate participants following these regulations the past four years.

UNI Transportation Information

By Air: Waterloo/Cedar Falls is served by Northwest Airline. If you don't mind small prop jets, this airport might offer the best rates. The Cedar Rapids airport is approximately an hour from Cedar Falls, offering jet service by most major carriers. Other airports used by tournament participants in the past have included Des Moines, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Moline, IL, and Chicago.

Ground Transportation: If you are flying, we encourage you to make van or mini-van reservations early. Due to on-campus regulations regarding university vehicles, we will not be able to provide local transportation. However, the area taxis operate at reasonable rates, and many of the local hotels offer airport transportation. By Car: From Chicago, take the Northwest Tollway (I-90) to U.S. 20. From Central Illinois or the Quad Cities, take I-80 to I-380 to U.S. 20. From Des Moines, take I35 North to US20 East. From Minnesota, take I35 to U.S. 218 south. Parking: Parking at the structure across the street from the Ramada is free, and you should have no problem parking on-campus on Saturday or Sunday.

UNI Team Policy Debate Schedule:

Friday, December 6

1:30-3:00pm Registration at Lang Hall (2nd floor lounge)

4:00-6:30pm     Round 1 (preset)

7:00-9:30pm     Round 2 (preset)

All Round 1 & 2 ballots must be submitted to tab before leaving the building

Snacks will be available in the 2^nd floor lounge between round 1 and 2.

Saturday, December 7

8am                 Pairings Released online

8:30am            Continental Breakfast, UNI Campus – LANG HALL 2nd floor lounge

9am                 Round 3 (High/Low)

11:45am           Round 4 (High/High)

                        Lunch UNI Campus – LANG HALL 2nd floor lounge

3:00pm            Round 5 (High/Low)

6:00pm            Round 6 (High/Low)

A list of teams participating in elimination rounds and the judges and standby judges will be posted tabroom.com after the conclusion of Round 6.

Sunday, December 8

7am                 Pairings/Panels Released online

7:30am            Continental Breakfast, UNI Campus – LANG HALL 2nd floor lounge

8am                 Elim One (decision time – 10:45am)

11:30                Awards

Elims continue…

REMINDER: We will be using Lang Hall as the tournament headquarters location. We appreciate the efforts people made during the tournament to protect this space. Once again we ask that tournament participants DO NOT MOVE THE TECHNOLOGY CARTS IN LANG HALL, TOUCH THE CARTS, OR PLACE FOOD AND DRINK NEAR THESE CARTS. If there is damage to the carts, the UNI Forensics team must pay for the damages out of our travel budget.

Contact information

If you have issues/questions please email or call me.

Richard Tews

richard.tews@uni.edu

319.273.7290 (office)

801.391.6614 (cell)