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Duquesne Speech and Debate Team

Duquesne University Invitational Tournament

December 6th

Contacts:

Anthony M. Wachs—wachsa@duq.edu

Beth Young—byoung14@gmail.com

Location: Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa 15282

Dear Coaches,

You are cordially invited to participate in the fourth annual Duquesne University Invitational Tournament to be held on Saturday, December 6, 2025. We are excited to continue hosting our annual tournament for the Pittsburgh area schools!

Entries: The below events will be offered. Students will be limited to entering 1 event, and teams will be limited to entering 5 competitors per individual event with the possibility of adding students to a waitlist that will be adjusted as the tournament approaches.

• Student Congress
• Lincoln Douglas
• Public Forum
• Parliamentary Debate
• Dramatic Interpretation
• Humorous Interpretation
• Original Oratory
• Poetry
• Prose
• Duo Interpretation

There will be four rounds of competition in all events (except congress). Detailed information can be found at www.tabroom.com, which is also the site for registration. To register you will have to create an account or use an existing account from past tournaments. Registration closes at 12PM on Friday, December 5^th.

Congress legislation will come from the district congress bank. Please check your Google Drive shared files or look on the Tabroom site.

We look forward to your participation in our inaugural event.

Sincerely,

Anthony M. Wachs, PhD

Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Communication Ethics & the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Director of Speech & Debate

Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies

Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit

Duquesne University Debating Society

600 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA, 15282

412.396.6446

REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION

FEES: $ 10 per entry in speech, LD, and congress

$ __15_ per team in Duo Interp, Parli, and PFD

Fees include registration and lunch.

Checks made payable to “___Duquesne Debating Society__”

Checks can be submitted at registration or sent to the following address:

Dr. Anthony M. Wachs

600 Forbes Ave

Pittsburgh, Pa 1582

Alternatively, teams can pay by card here:https://commerce.cashnet.com/COMMR?itemcode=COMMR-DON

ENTRIES:

Registration in speech is open UNTIL an event has reached the max that we can hold in that event. At that point, the next entries will be

put on a waiting list. Please note that the waiting list pays no attention to schools and the numbers of entries by any school. In other

words, register early! Because of space limitations, some categories may close before the registration deadline.

FORMAT: There will be four rounds of competition and no final round in speech events.
There will be four guaranteed rounds of debate

JUDGES: 1 per 5 in speech, or fraction thereof

1 per 2 in debate, or fraction thereof

1 per 6 in Congress, or fraction thereof

Judges must be present for all rounds. If a judge leaves early without notifying the tab room and/or without providing a replacement, that school will be disqualified. Judges may be moved from one event to another if the tab staff feels that is necessary to move the tournament along! The university is limited in its ability to provide hired judges so teams should bring enough judges to cover their entries. Hired judges cost $125 per judge. We recognize that this is slightly higher than other tournaments, but is intentionally so in order to disincentivize using judges. The limited number of judges will be on a first come first serve basis.

EVENTS:

Extemp PHSSL rules

DI, HI, Oratory, Prose, Poetry, Duo Interp 10 minutes maximum

Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas NFL time limits and topics

Parliamentary Debate PHSSL rules

Student congress PHSSL rules

PHSSL rules apply for all events except Oratory which will follow CFL rules.

Please note: “The coaches’ of the Pittsburgh NFL district are in agreement with the statement issued by PHSSL after its summer 2000 meeting. “Material that is presented in competition must be suitable for a high school audience. Contestants presenting material that is not suitable may be penalized.” This tournament supports this policy.

CONGRESS:

Congress legislation will come from the district congress bank. Please check your Google Drive account/Files Shared with Me, or the website of this tournament.

PARLI:

We will utilize the PA State norms for this event. Resolutions will be fact and value.

LUNCH:

Lunch is included in the registration fees. Lunch includes pizza and salad. We will ensure to include gluten free, vegan pizzas as well. To help us plan, please let us know the dietary needs of your team in advance of the tournament.

ADA Accessibility: Duquesne University is ADA Accessible. Please let us know if f there are any special needs that any students have.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

All events Registration, Mellon Hall 7:45 - 8:15

Speech and Debate: Assembly 8:30 - 8:45

Round I 9:00 - 10:00

Round II 10:00 - 11:00

Round III 11:00 - 12:00

Lunches 12:00 - 1:00

Round IV 1:00 - 2:00

Congress: First session 9:00 - 10:45

Lunch 11:00 – 11:45

Second session 12:00 - 2:15

Awards: 3:00

AWARDS:

Medals will be presented to the top 5 award winners in each category. Trophies will be presented to the winners of team sweepstakes.

Sweepstakes will be divided into two categories: large school (10 or more total entries) and small schools (9 or fewer entries). The top two schools in each category will receive sweepstakes awards. Sweeps will be based on the top ten entries in all categories.

Speech 6 minus each rank for each speaker

Debate 5 points for a win, 2 points for a loss

Congress Outstanding Speakers 20 points

DEADLINES: REGISTRATION DEADLINE: FRIDAY DECEMBER 5th NOON

Registration can only be done at www.tabroom.com Create an account if you don’t already have one, then go to the list of tournaments and click on the Duquesne University tournament. You can then begin your registration.

Fees for the in-person part of the tournament are set at the registration deadline of Friday December 5 at noon. You may continue to make changes (drops but no adds) to your in-person registration until 8:00 AM on Saturday, but the fees are set on Friday at noon.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Tournament registration begins at 7:45 a.m. on Saturday. Call or text Dr. Anthony M. Wachs at 724-584-7880 between 7:45 and 8:15 if there are any problems. If you know that you will be arriving late, please notify via text; we will begin round I as scheduled.

Parking will be provided, including buses. Busses will be directed to the usual spot just off campus. Visitors, including teams and judges, in non-bus vehicles can park in Forbes or Locust garage. The simplest solution is to access the garages from Forbes Ave. This will require visitors to take a ticket and pay when they leave. Alternatively, we have a limited number of validated parking spots. Coaches should email Dr. Wachs with a specific number of tickets required. Upon request, a QR code will then be given that will gain you access to Locust Garage. The Speech and Debate Team pays for each of these tickets, so the QR code should only be utilized by those with permission. Please do not share the code beyond the requested number of tickets needed.

WE ARE USING ONLINE BALLOTING FOR ALL EVENTS. Please be sure that your judges are linked to your school with a Tabroom account and that they bring a device on which they can input their ballots!!!