The Arbiter 4-11-11

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B o i se

Issue no.

S tate ’ s

I n d epe n d e n t

S tu d e n t

V o i c e

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B o i se

S tate

Sin c e

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56

April

11

2011

Volume 23

Sports

Softball closes out a successful weekend double header with two victories.

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Opinion

Give your feet some air while raising awareness for a good cause!

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Boise, Idaho

Rocketman

Beat Pete

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First issue free

Stand up And

This year, 1,032 runners finished before Chris Petersen Saturday in the annual Beat Pete Run/Walk, an event which raises money for scholarships. Many people donned costumes to encourage enthusiasm.

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Sir Elton John made a stop in humble Boise Saturday. The general consensus is that he rocked the show.

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Four! Golf ready for win

Check out your 2011 candidates and what they have planned for you

The men’s golf team prepares to head down to Provo, Utah for a big tournament.

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ONLINE Go to arbiteronline.com to watch a video interview with ASBSU executive candidates!

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CODY FINNEY/THE ARBITER

Preparation paid off for Talkin’ Broncos Tasha Adams Journalist

They took home top honors at the 2011 Pi Kappa Delta tournament and the Talkin’ Broncos worked hard for those bragging rights. I got to chat with Brian Swafford, interim Director of Forensics for the Talkin’ Broncos Speech and Debate Team, about the win and all the preparation that went into it. What do the Talkin’ Broncos do? We travel throughout the region and throughout the country doing competitive speech and debate tournaments. At most of our tournaments we do a combination of speaking events that can be interpretation of literature events, which are kind of like acting, public speaking events like persuasive speaking and informative speaking. And then we have a couple current event topics like extemporaneous (ad lib) speaking. We also do several different formats of debate that rely on students being knowledgeable on current events and geopolitics as well as argumentation and presentation. What is the Pi Kappa Delta tournament that the Talkin’ Broncos just participated in? It is the oldest honorary society for collegiate speech and debate in the country. The organization will celebrate its’ centennial in 2013 at the national tournament in St. Louis. They have been holding a national championship tournament every other year since the 1970s and it is a festival and conference. What is the structure of the tournaments? They have either three or four events that are offered each day and you can be entered into two of those events. So you compete in those speech events in the morning and then in the afternoon they have multiple forms of debate. After the first day, we come back in and do new speaking events and a new round of debates. The third day we do new speaking events and then elimination rounds of debate. They also do a showcase round for each of the individual events where they take four of the top competitors to show examples of

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what good performance is. Did Boise State have anyone in the showcase round? Yes, we had four competitors that were in showcases. That was the most representation from any one school. How does the team practice? We started planning what we were going to do for the national tournament when classes started back in September. We started writing and editing speeches and working on delivery way back then. We have traveled to numerous tournaments throughout the season that give us not only a chance to practice our speeches but give us feedback. The other thing that I ask them to do is that we meet as a class twice a week and during those two-hour blocks we divide up into groups of two or four and practice speeches with each other. The students then come in and work with me one-on-one during practice sessions. I help them hone delivery and give critiques. Just to memorize a ten-minute performance takes approximately ten hours. We took 107 individual events to the national tournament, which averages just under 5 and a half events per person. It was just hours and hours of practicing either with each other or on their own. There were students that would record their speeches and put it on an iPod so as they were walking across campus they were delivering their speeches. How impromptu is the impromptu speaking? Very impromptu. You are given a set of three quotes from famous authors, poets or playwrights and once you receive that clip, you are given seven minutes total to prepare and deliver your presentation. Most people prepare within one to two minutes and then stand up and talk for five to six minutes. What are some of the winning speeches? One of our speeches that was named “Top Superior,” which is the equivalent of the national championship speech, was in an event called Communication Analysis. You will look at some sort of communicative event, usually speech or a campaign ad or something along those lines, and

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you will do an analysis of that where you will peel back the layers. So one of our seniors, Debra Groberg, she was named the top superior in the event and her speech was looking at a breast cancer awareness campaign in Thailand. This campaign, what they did they painted cartoonish images of things that women will often become obsessed about, things like bad hair, bad acne, how they look in jeans, ya know. And what was interesting is they painted these cartoonish images on a naked body. So this ad stood out because at first glance you see the cartoonish images and then at second glance you see it is a naked body then you start asking about what is going on which is why the campaign, which was called the “Are You Obsessed with the Right Things?” campaign was so meaningful and so impactful. Anything else? Our results speak for themselves, I think the kids worked really really hard and they started the year by saying they wanted to win nationals and it is one thing to say it but it is another thing to put in the work and the time and so all the credit in the world should go to the kids for the sheer amount of hard work they put in and al the hours they spent practicing because most of them will tell you they lost sleep they had all the nervous panic attacks that come with competition and to be able to pull it off especially in basically our backyard was outstanding.

Assistant News Editor news@stumedia.boisestate.edu

Suzanne Craig

Assistant News Editor The Quad is no longer a site of close calls and near collisions between bicyclists, long-boarders, and pedestrians. Policy 9010, Pedestrian Safety, has recently been put into effect and outlines a “pedestrian priority zone” that occupies the entirety of the Quad, with cyclist priority lanes on Brady Lane and Cesar Chavez Lane, which basically allow bicyclists to pick which end of campus to park their bikes before walking to any classes they have in the more centrally located buildings. This policy is not only for bikes though, the pedestrian priority zone makes it clear that longboarders, roller-bladers and skateboarders also can’t go zipping through the heart of campus anymore. The policy was effective immediately upon the installment of the new bike racks by Albertson’s Library and the removal of the old ones during Spring Break. Anyone found in violation of this policy runs the risk of their wheels being impounded, citations being issued and disciplinary action being pursued.

8th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference nik bjurstrom/THE ARBITER

The freshman girls of the Talkin’ Broncos have their own collection of trophies.

Today

59º high

1 to 4 p.m. Monday, April 11 Second floor of the SUB

Weather

News Editor

news@stumedia.boisestate.edu

Wheelsdown zone in the Quad

Tomorrow

Showers

chance of precip: 30%

57º high

Wednesday

Partly Cloudy

chance of precip: 10%

56º high

Showers

chance of precip:30%

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