By André Green/se news editor
SE Campus students and faculty received a persuasive dose of reality during SE Campus’ interdepartmental speech competition April 23 in the C.A. Roberson Theatre.
Global Issues, presented by the speech department, included nine students not only trying to share an important message, but also competing for cash prizes.
Tonya Blivens, instructor of speech, said SE had not held a speech competition in nearly three years.
She and Ashley Alfaro, instructor of speech, decided to restart the competition to give students a forum to express their concerns and convey their ideas to the student body.
“ We want to push our students to become good global citizens,” she said. “We want them to know that they are part of a much, much larger community, and that’s why we picked the same topic, global issues, to really raise awareness about what’s going on globally.”
When the topic was announced, Blivens said she had to elaborate on what global issues meant.
“ When we informed the students we would be covering global issues, some of them thought we were talking about global warming,” she said.
Blivens said she was not surprised by the initial response because so many people think global issues only encompasses temperature change and the melting ice caps.
But there is so much more. From immigration to apathy, there are issues people do not consider or talk about in the realm of global issues, Blivens said.
In order to participate, the students had to have been enrolled in fall or current semester speech classes.
Each of the nine participants was allowed to present a four-to-six minute persuasive speech on a topic that provided some call to action for the audience members.
The top three winners of the competition were given bookstore and scholarship money, which was provided by McGraw-Hill Companies and Thompson Publishing.
First-place winner Taboh Sieni, received a $100 scholarship and a $100 bookstore voucher for his speech on immigration and the negative effects of immigration on legal immigrants.
Joy Nuñez, who won second place, highlighted abused and neglected children being recruited as soldiers in Uganda and Sudan. Her speech, “Keep Your Coins; I Want Change,” garnered a $100 scholarship.
Tied for third were Gilbert Marunga’s “Voting” and Stephen Crumby’s “Apathy Kills,” with each winning $50 scholarships.
The remaining five speakers were given honorable mention and awarded $50 publisher’s checks from McGraw-Hill.
Blivens acknowledged the event could not have been possible without the persistence of Alfaro. Blivens said Alfaro was also responsible for recruiting the sponsors.
“ This event went so smoothly and a lot of that is because of Ashley,” she said. “She did a lot of planning to get this all together.”
Blivens said overall, the students were excited about the opportunity to get their message to people other than their classmates.
“ The students were pumped because they really believed in what they were talking about,” she said. “That and I guess the prize money kind of helps motivate them a little bit.”
The turnout, Blivens said, was more than she expected, but she was hopeful audience members were able to take something out of it.
“ Every speech had a call to action—something people can go out and do if they feel passionate about the idea,” she said. “There is a quote I like to share by philosopher Lloyd Bitzer that goes ‘rhetoric shouldn’t just be rhetoric, rhetoric can produce action.’”
