|
|
|
Climb the Mountain Speech
& Debate Foundation Climb the Mountain
provides support for coaches, students, and judges to build a bigger and even
better speech and debate community. |
Coach
Recruiting Tips . . . Climb the Mountain These are
coach tips from a 1990s survey Jim Hanson conducted for recruiting
effectively. ROBERT
TRAPP’S TIPS Our
recruiting efforts are largely dedicated to seeing that our forensic students
are good students. Thus we put more
weight on high school grades and SAT scores than on debate experience
although the later may be important as well.
MO
MINIELLI’S TIPS 1. We try
to host at least one overnight campus visit in the spring. Prospective students stay with current team
members and the member show them around, take them to class, etc. Doing at all once is a great help in talking
to all recruits at the same time. 2.
Current team members said they liked getting personal phone calls from me and
other team members. Since our school
is small and promotes personal attention, we try to do our part by maintaing
contact with prospective students. 3. In
addition to phone calls, current team members write notes to prospective
students thanking them for their interest in the squad...they basically serve
as the forensics team contact person with the recruit. 4.
Prospective students have also traveled with us to tournaments to get an idea
of what college forensics is like, as well as how our team acts and interacts. Those have gone over very well too. 5. We
plan to judge high school tournaments in our area as a way of recruiting as
well as giving my kids practice being on the other side of the pen. 6. We
also hosted a high school tournament as a way of getting prospective students
to our campus. Some of our current
members attended our past tournaments and said they probably wouldn't have
considered our school had it not been for the high school tournament. We don't host one anymore because we have
grown too big for our budget! But it
helped at the time. 7. We
have a brochure about our program that is mailed out to prospective students. The brochure is mailed out by our
admissions office. A letter listing
our scholarship is also sent to prospective students. 8.
Keeping touch with students over the summer before coming to school is really
big...keeps them in touch and involved with the team, even though they really
haven't started classes yet. That's
more on the retention side of new recruits than new recruiting per se. KARLA
LEEPER’S TIPS I am sure
that a lot of people will hit on the main points of recruiting, but these are
some things I have learned since I have been at Baylor. The best
advice I have for recruiting is to provide anyone who might listen with information
about what you are doing. The best
students with whom I have worked have been those who sought me out--not
necessarily those whom I sought. Just getting some visibility so that people
in your university and your area know you are there. Flyers, the school
paper, press releases, you and your students talking about their efforts in
classes, talking among other faculty--all of that information may trickle
down to someone who will be interested. One good
way to get visibility is community service. Baylor has long had a commitment
to involving students in community service. Waco has also had a significant
involvement in Clinton's youth summit idea. We do a fall and a spring
community service project. That is
good for our kids, and gets us some involvement with people who might not
have known we exist. We also
widely advertise our public debates in the community as well as at the University.
That reminds the community that we exist.
I have had several students who have walked in the door because a
friend of a friend heard about something we were doing and thought they
should check us out. The list
of people who should be informed includes your alumni. Some of my best recruiters are my
alums--and their parents. The students
fan out all over the country when they leave and they make great
contacts. Moreover, the parents are excited
by the way debate has contributed to their kids' lives. They will talk to their friends and those
they meet and send good kids--even if they have no debate experience--your
direction. KRISTINA
SCHRIVER’S TIPS Save for
two students, all of the CSU-Chico debaters started as novices and were
recruited from our campus. How did we do it? We host an on-campus rookie
tournament every semester. The students from the public speaking class
compete against each other in persuasive speaking, informative, and impromptu.
The three sections of the argumentation and debate compete each each other in
a four round tournament. We give the students extra credit in our class AND
they can receive an additional unit of credit for signing up for the
tournament. It's been an enormous success. This semester we have 251 students
signed up for the rookie! Our department loves the rookie tournament because
it generates much FTE. And, the students who do well, win hardware (even some
who don't), end up traveling with the team. This last
year we had a master's student who put together the Rookie Tournament
Handbook. If you are interested in starting a tourney at your school and
would like this resource, let me know. MIKE
KRUEGER’S GET NOVICES TIPS There
have been a couple posts in here asking questions about how to get novices
and to keep them. Well, once I get
them to a tournament, I have them. I
rarely lose them once the tournament "hooks" them. My trouble the past two years is recruiting
them from campus. We try damn hard at
MTSU to recruit novices, and three years ago, we had a bonanza, and they are
currently my varsity squad. So, here
is what my squad does to recruit: I send
out letters to presidential scholars. We
plaster the campus with flyers in the beginning (first week) of the year. We
promote debate with our webpage. We send
notices to professors. We
publish our meeting times in our newspapers. We
promote by word of mouth. We
distribute literature and talk to people at the organization fair. I
guarantee that people know about us. However,
we don't have many novices. why? 1. students work. students can get off for the weekends, or
afford to. This is the number one
reason why I don't have more novices.
It is a shame that they have to work, but it is realistic. I have lost almost every novice the past two years for this reason. 2. debate isn't what they thought. (they imagined debate to be like parli frankly). They didn't want to do research, they
didn't want to learn about subjects that were un-interesting (yes, even last
year on the civil rights topic), and so on. 3. time commitment. Ok, we require novices to work about 5
hours per week at the beginning. We
set up times to work with them in small groups. Yet this is too much time. It would take away from their other
activities. These are
the three primary reasons. If people
have ideas about how to get around them or to preach the reasons to debate
which go beyond the norm, I would appreciate it. We don't
have scholarships to give to MBA students (like they would come to MTSU), so
we basically live and die with our novice recruitment and training. And, if
we have trouble hooking people, then i can see the problem that other schools
would have. I ask for
help, and help those who don't have novices or know how to attract them. SARAH
CHAN’S TIPS 1. Heavy
campaigning on campus... we have brochures and fliers all over the place the
first few weeks of each semester. 2.
Recruiting in public speaking classes... we go to all of the public speaking
and argumentation classes (the ones required for general ed oral comm) and
hype the program. 3. We
talk to anyone and everyone who will listen for a minute or two. :-) GREG
YOUNG’S TIPS Thought
this might be useful recruiting information for DOFs trying to convince
students to become involved in forensics.
I've taken it from the "Career News," an in house
publication on the Humboldt State campus.
The article was entitled "Skills Employers Look For." "The
top skill employers seek in new hires is the ability to communicate. Students
would do well to take every opportunity to hone this important ability. Join organizations and participate in
projects, particularly in a leadership role.
Take speech courses that focus on public speaking or interpersonal
skills. Take every opportunity to
develop your writing skills. The
annual employment forecast by the National Association of Colleges And Employers,
Job Outlook '99, included survey results focusing on the top skills and
personal characteristics sought in hiring.
They are: *
Communication skills *
Work experience *
Motivation/initiative *
Teamwork skills *
Leadership abilities *
GPA/academic credentials *
Technical skills *
Interpersonal skills *
Analytical skills *
Ethics These
were ranked in order of their importance to prospective employers. The
article goes on to say other stuff that you already know about the importance
of comm. skills, but I thought the above might be useful. RAFAEL
BITO’S TIPS My name
is Rafael Bito and I am Ede Warner's Grad Assistant at U of Louisville. A reason that I joined the debate not long
ago was because I was genuinely interested in the activity. I think that many students do not
understand that one is able to walk on as a novice. Public announcements such as flyers or
Campus news ads are always a good thing. What we
did this semester was to recruit thru our Argumentation and Debate course. We gave the class a competitive option
wherein they participated in two tournaments and did not have to write a
couple of papers, and also received some leniency on tests. This gave us three extra novice teams and
half of them are interested in staying on next semester. The retention, I think, came from the
enjoyment we facilitated nightly at each tournament and their general
improvement from the first tournament to the next. As for
high school recruitment. The
Louisville Debate Society facilitates/runs the local county high school tournaments. It is much like the urban debate leagues
started in SF, NY, Atlanta, etc.
Urban or local debate leagues are great venues for recruitment. Scholorships are often offered to students
in high school that are interested in continuing their education and debate
career. This is probably not a unique practice,
but a good relationship in that College debaters and coaches interact with
the high school students has shown to be effective. Ede Warner recruited me from meeting me at
the Bay Area Urban Debate League summer camp. ------------------------------------ TIFFANY’S
SAC STATE TIPS what do
you do to get more novices? Hook up
with pre-law frat Phi Alpha Delta if your campus has a chapter, or seek out
the pre-law advisor for your school Recruit
in speech/argumentation classes, logic classes, and math classes, etc Be nice
to existing novices so they don't have horror stories. how do
you connect with high school programs? Send your
debaters to judge high school tourneys what have
you done to increase outreach to diverse groups of students? Invite
everyone to try debate; our coach would travel anyone to a local tournament
so they could get a feel for debate ---------------------------------------- JAKOB’S
WACO HS TIPS perform a
fun debate in front of an apogee or honors program of junior high students we only
make an announcement at school over the loudspeaker with all the other
announcements but make it sound attractive (like talking about its benefits,
travelling, talking, current events, friends, etc... we too have a small team and this doesn't
bring in a large number but keeps the team at about a steady 10 members that
stay dedicated the entire year. also,
have current members recruit their friends. I was
faced with similar circumstances last year, and well, I can give you a few
pointers on what ***NOT*** to do.
First of all don't pressure any of your close friends to come and
join. They'll come in at first cuz' u
say so but then see all the work and book it... Just mention to them there are "debate
tryouts" or something like that and it'll get in there head... that's what
worked the best. Flyers
don't really work (we plastered them everywhere)... I think what you need to
do is spark interest in debate and get those ppl who are willing to become
interested, not reach out to those who already are... Maybe have like mock debates with free pizza
or something =) One year
we sent out a flyer to all people who enrolled in the speech class asking
anybody who wanted to debate in high school to go to the school one day. When the people showed up, we (the
experienced debate team) told them about LD and team. This consisted of explaining it, Q and A,
and then a demo of each. Afterward, we
had a two week free camp. We taught
them how to debate and gave them photocopies of some of our camp ev. Then we had some practice rounds. We ended up getting 3 novice teams and 2
LDers. The best
way to get new kids is to get them to take the class and have TONS of contact
with varsity members. Odds are that if
they have friends that are staying in debate or are already on the squad they
will want to stay. As for wanting to
attract people to join in the first place, have a nice teacher and offer lots
of extra credit for things like attending tournaments. Lots of kids have more fun at the
tournaments, rather than sitting around a debate lab. ------------------------------- SUSAN
HELLBUSCH TIPS Assistant
Director of Forensics Creighton
University ***A
great recruiting source for us has been the basic public speaking class. There is usually one "stand-out"
in each class, some of whom can be persuaded to give the team a try. We also send letters to all incoming freshmen
who have previous experience in debate and forensics as indicated on their
application forms. Finally, returning
team members are encouraged to recruit others from their own high schools. ------------------------------- SARAH
RYAN TIPS Capital
University We have
many new members join because we set up a booth at the student activities
fair each year. Additionally, we have
contests for the debaters who bring the most new people into our squad. -------------------------------------- GLENDA
TREADWAY TIPS Appalachian
State University I recruit
a lot from the classes within our department like public speaking and
argumentation and advocacy. I also
recruit from local high schools. We
have been fortunate enough to have been involved in the creation of two new
high school programs in the area. My
students and I have done workshops for these schools. We stay in contact with them by judging at
tournaments they host and answering questions when they have any. ---------------------------- JOHN
KATSULAS TIPS Boston
College Tips for
recruiting: The best
way to recruit students is to expose them to debate. Hold an on campus public debate and invite
students from other classes to attend. Teach a debate class to students
without any experience, and there will be someone from the class interested
in joining the debate team. --------------------------- STEVE
WOODS TIPS WILLIAM
AND JEWELL As you
can maybe tell all of the above info was already available in a brochure
we've produced in house to give to prospective students in person and through
the mail. So I guess one tip is have all of the answers to the cquestions
above available in hard copy for interested students. We try to
make sure that some members of the squad are available when students show up
for a campus visit. We then let our
students talk about why they like debate directly with the students we are
meeting. Steve and
Gina offer to be campus liasons to deal with questions prospective students
might have about any aspect of campus, like majors financial aid, etc. We let them know that we are happy to be a
real face to interact with when dealing with the institution even in terms of
non-debate aspects. We try to
make it to local HS tournaments. We
encourage our students to make it to local HS tournaments to judge. Hope the
project goes well, thanks for the opportunity. -------------------------- MIKE
KRUEGER’S TIPS Middle
Tennesee State University We don't
recruit high school students for two reasons: 1. There are VERY FEW high school debaters in
Tennessee 2. We have very limited scholarships So, we
have to recruit raw novices and go from there. We
recruit novices the following ways: 1. We target incoming Freshmen that are
"Presidential Scholars."
Those people get a campus scholarship that is full tuition, room and
board. We send them letters
specifically encouraging them to try debate. 2. We target second year Poli Sci, History, Philosophy,
and other Liberal Arts majors with over a 3.0 their first year of college and
send them letters specifically encouraging them to try debate. 3. We hold an Open House, putting up flyers
around campus, having professors announce that we are having the open house,
and so on, to try and get students to try debate. We generally get some people to learn about
it. 4. We ask professors in the speech department
to recommend students who might be willing to participate and would make good
candidates. 5. We engage in public debates and suggest
that people stop by and talk to us about intercollegiate debate if what they
heard is interesting to them. We
generally have 2-3 varsity/junior varsity teams and 2-3 novice teams after engaging
in these recruiting activities. The
problem of not having scholarships is that it is hard to get students since so
many have to work, and debate takes away from that ability. Thanks
for engaging this project! I'm sure
that it will be most helpful. ----------------------------- ED
PANETTA’S TIPS University
of Georgia TIP--
Students should select a school that they will enjoy if they choose to leave
debate for any period of their matriculation. TIP--
It's not the size of the initial scholarship but the conditions for
maintaining the award and the real cost of the institution that students
should consider. -------------------- JIM
KIMBLE’S TIP George
Mason University Actually,
there is an old article by Kevin Dean and somebody else (his significant other?)
when they were at Ball State that is just fabulous on recruitment. They basically focus on _on-campus_
recruitment, which is the focus we have taken at GMU. I'm not sure I can add much to the article's
great ideas!! |
|
|
|
|