Author Archives: Executive Director

2012-2013 National Ombudsperson’s Report to the Executive

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As per request from the 2013 CUSID AGM, National Ombudsperson Devon Black has provided us with her Report to the Executive for the careful consideration of the general membership. As such, the report has been uploaded to CUSIDnet, everyone is encouraged to read it and consider the issues outlined within. Discussion in regards to the report can take place on the CUSIDnet forums, particularly the Equity and Diversity forum.

Please click here to view the report.

Stay tuned for further updates to the status of the CUSID website.

2010 CUSID-APDA North American Championships

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The last weekend of January 2010 marked the annual North American Debating Championships — a competition between the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID) and the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA). The competition was hosted this year by the joint efforts of the Osgoode Debating Society and the York Debating Society on North Toronto’s beautiful York University campus. With 80 teams (that’s 160 speakers!) competing for the title, there was some strong competition for the North American champion title. The final round, by happy coincidence, worked out to be a showdown between CUSID and APDA. Despite a valiant attempt made by McGill University team of Saro Setrakian & Sean Stefanik, the final round and the championship went to the MIT team of Adam Goldstein & Bill Magnuson.

Despite MIT claiming the victory for APDA, CUSID had a strong showing this year. In addition to the McGill finalists, CUSID’s team from UBC (Evan Choate & Joshua Sealy-Harrington) finished as semifinalists, teams from Queen’s University (Adam Hetherington & Christine Wadsworth) and another team from McGill University (Vinay Mysore & Sophie MacIntyre) finished as quarterfinalists, and two Hart House teams (Richard Lizius & George Trotter and John Ashbourne & Erin Fitzgerald) as well as another Queen’s team (Adrienne Lipsey & Mark Rubenstein) finished as octofinalists.

CUSID also secured the spots of top novice speaker (Tim Abdulla from McGill University), top novice team (Deirdre Casey & Sam Greene from Hart House), and 8 of the 10 top speaker positions:
#1 Richard Lizius (Hart House LT)
#2 Christine Wadsworth (Queen’s HW)
#3 Adam Hetherington (Queen’s HW)
#4 Adam Goldstein (MIT GM)
#5 Sean Stefanik (McGill SS)
#6 Saro Setrakian (McGill SS)
#7 John Ashbourne (Hart House AF)
#8 Sophie MacIntyre (McGill MM)
#9 Alex Campbell (Stanford CM)
#10 George Trotter (Hart House LT)

Overall, this was a good year for CUSID. Next, we’ll find out who Canada’s top debaters are at the National championships this March in Edmonton.

2010 McGill Winter Carnival CUSID Meeting Minutes

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Attendance:
Alberta
Calgary
Carleton
Dalhousie
Dawson
EDS
ESG-UQAM
Hart House
McGill
Mt. Alison
Osgoode
Queen’s
RMC
St. FX
Trinity
UBC
Waterloo
York

Agenda:
1) Membership request of ESG-UQAM
2) Worlds Update from koc
3) Fall 2010 scheduling dates
4) Women’s Tournament
5) CUSID Vimeo Account

Vinay calls the meeting to order at 1:19pm.

1) Membership request of ESG-UQAM
Guillaume: Here’s the club rep.; everything’s in order.
Vinay calls a vote to see who’s in favour of admitting the new member; the vote passes unanimously.

2) Worlds Update from koc
Vinay:
Worlds Council update
Move towards scheduling changes, nothing instituted yet
Guarantee of a single team per institution
Giving spots to teams w/ past competitive success
Botswana will probably be first come first serve
All of this is contingent on future growth trends in worlds size
Also talks of expanding the break
Hart House lost the Worlds bid
There were also some equity issues

Rachel: What is the time-scale for competitive-reserved spots?
Vinay: Nothing specific was decided

Yumi: Who’s the new chair?
Vinay: Same Greenland. He’s from Sydney.

3) Fall 2010 scheduling dates

Vinay: Trouble with scheduling in the past; May/June scheduling doesn’t really help with certain conflicts (Hart House needs to know room bookings a year in advance)

Rachel: We could do it at the fall AGM at BP Nats?

4) Women’s Tournament

Vinay: Problems with representation of women in CUSID, this tournament is an experiment to look at ways of dealing with these problems
This will only work if schools take this seriously; send competitive teams
Competition for women only, but men and women are welcome to attend

Sophie & Lauren:
Lauren: Ice skating and laser quest socials, BP style debating, banquets, public speaking
Sophie: Want men to come out and help judge, getting a lot of female dinos to come out
Billeting will be provided

Yumi: Hybrids?

Kassie: What if a school wants to bid for next year? Bid at Nats?
Vinay: Sure? We’ll decide some way of doing it.

5) CUSID Vimeo Account

Mitchell: been recording videos for a while, there seems to be a lot of interest in them
Absorbing the hosting/bandwidth costs
Looking for a more efficient solution of hosting
Vimeo account will cost $60/year, sufficient for our purposes
Password protected sharing/etc.

Maia:Youtube?
Mitchell: 10 minute limit, lack of customized hosting options makes it a bad fit for debating

Yumi: streaming/downloading
Mitchell: Vimeo is mainly a streaming site, but file downloads are accessible w/ a pro account

Husein: Hosting public speaking as well?
Mitchell: Yes

Rudi: Two thumbs up

Vinay: Plagiarized cases; should we be concerned about this?

Brent: Great idea; financially feasible, should maintain current privacy practices
Mitchell: All of the current practices (getting permission, etc.) will still apply

Rudi: You waive your right to ban uploading recordings for certain title tournaments
Wouldn’t ban NBA championship game because some players feel they miss important shots
These are important for promotion and the history of our organization
Jake Liang: Debaters argue (sincerely) for things that you don’t necessarily believe in; videos only convey the sincerity, not what your beliefs are & debate cases don’t necessarily translate well into the real world
There should be clear disclaimers about the beliefs of the speakers in this round

Cal: sharing videos will prevent plagiarism, since everybody knows what you’re doing

Vinay: approve the $60 for vimeo hosting?

Motion: Approve the ED to purchase a Vimeo account on behalf of CUSID ($60/year)
Moved by Mike Soo; Seconded by Waterloo
Approved Unanimously

Meeting adjourned by Vinay at 1:53pm.

CUSID.ca Relaunch

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In the off chance you haven’t already noticed, the CUSID.ca site was re-launched today, with a new design and layout. Please bear with us as we transfer over all of the results and information from the old website. If you’re looking for the results, or the official CUSID documents, they’re still available at our old website located here.

Also, the site is now running the WordPress CMS, so feel free to sign up for an account. If you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions, send me an email at ed@cusid.ca.

2009 CUSID National Championships

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Hot on the heels of crowning Amy Marlene Robichaud Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister, the 2009 CUSID National Championships have recognized new National Champions. 54 teams from 18 schools competed at the event graciously hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Debate Society.

Richard Lizius and Paul-Erik “Dash” Veel of Hart House took home the gold, defeating McGill University’s Sophie MacIntyre & Jake Liang. The triumphant pair also took home Top Speaker awards, placing first and second respectively.

In Novice Finals, Mary MacPhail and Robert Lees-Miller from the University of Alberta defeated David Miko and Justen Russell from the University of Calgary. The Top Novice Speaker was the Royal Military College’s David Reid.

Triumphant in the East vs West showdown were Dalhousie’s Andrew McCoomb & Krum Dochev, who defeated the University of British Columbia’s Maria Jogova and Joshua Sealy.

Dan Powell of RMC became CUSID’s Top Public Speaker with a ballad detailing the exploits of the Dalhousie team, whose success against fierce opposition earned them the honorific “Dragonslayers”.

The new CUSID executive was also elected. Vinay Kumar Mysore of McGill University will be the 2009-2010 CUSID President, and joining him will be Brent Kettles from Osgoode Hall as Treasurer. Trinity College’s Mitchell Gerskup of will serve as CUSID’s new Executive Director. Iain Ireland and Ali Cherri will be serving as regional Vice-Presidents, joining Shaughnessy Hawkins, the sitting V-P Central. Many thanks to the outgoing executive.

Next year’s National Championships will be hosted by the University of Alberta, British Parliamentary Nationals by the University of British Columbia, and Toronto’s York University will host the North American Debating Championships.