Speech & Debate Union

Speech & Debate Union Takes Full Tournament Honors

October 13, 2017

The University of Portland Speech and Debate Union took full honors in winning the Novice International Public Debate Association debate division at the Northwest Parliamentary Warm-Up Debate Tournament on September 8, 2017, according to Bohn Lattin, communication studies.

Kelsy Smith, psychology and Spanish, took first place; Jesse Barrett, social work, took second place; and Joseph Krietzberg, civil engineering, took third place. In addition, all three placed in the top five novice Speaker’s category. Ryan Reiger, computer science, was a semi-finalist in the Senior/Open division and won the Top Speaker award.

For more information contact Lattin at lattin@up.edu.

Speech & Debate Union Earns Bronze Eagle Award

April 20, 2015

The University of Portland Speech and Debate Union won a Bronze Eagle team trophy from the Northwest Forensics Conference (NFC) for the 2014-2015 academic year, according to Bohn Lattin, communication studies. The NFC is made up of speech and debate teams from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, and also includes some of the most prominent, award-winning, and well-funded teams in the nation.

Eagle team trophies are awarded based on a compilation of cumulative points earned during the year. Each individual debate and speech award won, each individual speaker award earned, and each individual platform trophy awarded is tabulated and goes toward a total team score. Team members are Karina Agbisit, communication studies; Lakshmi Biswas-Diener, communication studies; Arthur Hammer, business administration; Elizabeth Hartley, biology; Lisa Holm, communication studies; Patrick Johnson, education; Anna Murphy, political science; Alex Parini, political science; Edward Richter, political science; Chelsea Roberts, communication studies; and Katherine Wilson, political science. All are welcome to see the trophy located in a case outside the College of Arts and Sciences.

For more information contact Lattin at 7352 or lattin@up.edu.

Jacquie Van Hoomissen has been selected by the steering committee of the NSF ADVANCE Partnership project (Advancing STEM Careers by Empowering Network Development) to join the inter-institutional peer mentoring network of Administrators in the Northwest region. As a member of an Administrator Alliance, she will work with teams to evaluate how campus policies and practices impact professional advancement and leadership development of a diverse faculty in STEM fields. The goal of the program is to reduce institutional obstacles to advancement for women in STEM fields, create more equitable communities, and foster the retention and advancement of a diverse STEM faculty population.

Hannah Highlander, mathematics, edited An Introduction to Undergraduate Research in Computational and Mathematical Biology: From Disease Dynamics to Big Data (with Carrie Diaz Eaton, Alex Capaldi), New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-33645-5, February 2020.

Simon Aihiokhai, theology, was cited in The Tablet, December 9, 2019: “Africans Warn Numerical Growth Has To Be Matched By ‘Tools of Liberation.'” See the article here. He was also elected as a member of the Board of Directors for a three years term at the College Theology Society in March 2020.

Elizabeth Lee, institutional research, has been elected to the Association for Institutional Research’s Board of Directors as a member-at-large. AIR is an organization that seeks to empower higher education professionals to utilize data, analytics, and evidence to make decisions and take actions that benefit students. Elizabeth has cycled off as treasurer for the Pacific Northwest regional organization for institutional researchers in time to serve at the national level. Full election results are available at this link.

Cara Poor, Shiley School of Engineering, contributed “Evaluation of agricultural byproducts as amendments in bioretention systems for metal and nutrient removal” (with Ben Guidice, Jacob Bib, and student coauthor Camille Morgan) to Journal of Environmental Engineering, 146: 04020029, March 2020.

Hillary Merk, Jacqueline Waggoner, James Carroll, Heidi Parrett, and Claire Tooley, education, presented one paper at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “From High School to Teaching: Developing a ‘Grow Your Own’: Pathway for A More Diverse Teaching Profession.”

Jacqueline Waggoner, Hillary Merk, Randy Hetherington, James Carroll, and Bruce Weitzel, education, presented at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “Trauma Informed Practices and Teacher Preparation.”

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