District 8 By-Laws

[V I Keenan]

Creating a space for Regional/District Records that are publicly accessible:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNLh7dnps7XIfVfZMiI6gvt6k-3ngo2IKRRWnAqTiRQ/edit?usp=sharing


DISTRICT EIGHT BY-LAWS
Original draft based on meeting of Feb 28, 2004
Revised, Feb 25, 2012 (8 rounds for over 16 entries)
Revised, Feb 2015 (clarification of bye team and district rep election processes)
Revised Feb 27, 2016 (provision for suspension of district rules)
 
I.                   Nature of the District
a.      The purpose of the District VIII shall be the sponsor and administer a tournament to qualify teams for the National Debate Tournament.
b.      The policies and procedures of the district shall conform to the requirements of the NDT for qualifying teams, to the ethical rules of the AFA and the anti-harassment policies of CEDA.
c.      All accredited colleges and universities in CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, and VT who subscribe to the NDT shall be eligible for District VIII membership, renewable on a year to year basis.
 
II.                Business Meetings There shall be one regular annual meeting, at the district tournament. Such other special meetings as may be required shall be called by the District Chair, or by a majority of the voting membership of the district. Notice shall be provided of all meetings at least two weeks prior to the meeting. Voting members shall be limited to schools that have paid their NDT subscription for the current year, and each member institution shall designate a single voting representative for each meeting. A quorum of 50% of the membership shall be required to conduct business.
 
III.             Officers
a.      There shall be three officers of the District: District Chair, District Tournament Director/Host, and District NDT Representative.
b.      District Chair shall serve for a term of three years unless sooner removed by the District by resignation. The Chair shall preside over all district meetings, regular and special. The Chair shall be responsible for communicating the results of the District Tournament to the NDT, and for keeping and publishing minutes of all meetings.
c.      The Tournament Host/Director shall be chosen at each district meeting for the next year, by vote of the membership. The Director shall organize the district tournament, including its scheduling, pairing, judge assignment, tabulation of results, recruiting and hiring of extra judges, and preparing a budget and setting the fees.
d.  The District Representative shall be chosen by the procedures set out in the standing rules of the NDT.
 
IV.              The Tournament
a.      The tournament shall be held over a period of two days, generally Saturday and Sunday. When 16 teams or more are entered, there shall be eight preliminary rounds, four on day one and four on day two with no additional runoffs.  When fewer than 16 teams are entered there shall be six preliminary rounds, four on day one and two on day two, with further runoff rounds as required.
b.      Each member school may enter as many teams as it provides qualified judges. All teams entered must be eligible to attend the NDT and count towards the bid allocation for the district. No team may compete unless it’s school’s NDT subscription fee has been paid. An exception shall be made for eligibility for a team entered to prevent a bye in the tournament preliminary debates, though this team is not eligible for qualification to the NDT.
c.      Pairing, There shall be four pre-set rounds. The membership shall collectively rank the teams in attendance at the tournament, and the director shall pair the preset rounds so as to equalize the competition faced by every team, to the extent possible. Rounds five and six (and when necessary, rounds seven and eight) will be power matched. Teams from the same school will not be paired against each other.
d.      Judging. There will be two judges per round. All judges shall have experience on the topic and published judge philosophy. Each team may strike up to 20% of the pool. After that, the Director may assign judges either randomly or based on mutual preference. Judges will hear a team only one time, as long as that is possible. Run-off rounds will have three judges.
e.      Tabulation. The Director will tabulate results. Teams qualifying for the NDT will be determined on the basis of ballots. Seeding will be based on opponent wins, then points, if ballots are tied. However, if a tie has to be broken to determine who goes to the NDT, that can only be done by run-off debates. The Tournament Director shall promptly report the results to the membership and to tabroom.com.
f.       Suspension of Tournament Rules. In case of  a desire or need to suspend the bylaws of the tournament, a temporary one-year suspension of by-laws can be approved by a two-thirds majority of the subscribing voting institutions of the district.

[V I Keenan]

REGIONAL PRACTICE NOTES:

QOL TOURNAMENTS:
5 rounds saturday with dinner, OR 4 rounds Saturday

Diversity and other Statements:
Northeast Region,
 
Just one quick note, Adam Scher was also in the room for the meeting
 
It was noted that we want to have more transparency within our pref systems.  We want to provide a quick note on the prelim prefs at West Point.  We set the preference range as 70 with a mutuality range of 30 for Novice (to reflect the larger number of novice-only judging).  JV was set at 60 and 30 (to reflect the larger number of novice/JV-only judging), and Open was set at 50 and 30.  In each round, below is the worst pref/mutuality that occured (note: a round with 60/24 means the worst preference any team had was a 60th percentile and the worst mutuality in any round was a 24, but the worst mutuality was not necessarily in the same debate as the team who received the worst preference).  Note: when we went out of those standards, it was to replace no-show judges.
 
Novice   JV   Open
Round 1   70/20   51/17   48/12
Round 2   50/24   50/25   51/28
Round 3   68/23   58/28   45/29
Round 4   64/24   55/29   41/19
Round 5   60/30   44/29   41/29
Round 6   66/28   56/23   47/24



On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 10:17 PM, j.g.miller@rochester.edu <j.g.miller@rochester.edu> wrote:
NorthEast CEDA Regional Meeting , October 19, 2010, West Point

Present
Jillian Marty Vermont
Neil Berch West Virginia
Vk Keenan CUNY
Chris Kozak Rutgers
Josh Imes New School
Kathryn Rubino USMA
Joe Patten Monmouth
Will Baker NYU
John Katsulas  BC
Joe Schatz  Binghamton
Gordie Miller Rochester
(also Janna White, Samantha Godbey, Melissa Mistretta, Joe Patrice)

Joe calls meeting to order at 2:16 PM, Gordie Miller takes minutes.

1.      need to select new region representative , is nomination process , nominee goes to CEDA for approval/vote.
discussion about how the regional rep duties, costs to get NCA and CEDA Summer meeting,
Joe Schatz nominated Jillian Marty for regional Rep, Vik Keenan seconds.    Unanimously approved.
2.      Regionals discussion. Is it at West Conn? Tyler gave impression at Binghamton that it will be. Will suggests and all agree to to help Tyler and Max with “tournament manual” if wanted/needed.
3.      Neil new business-  Neil reads his proposal for increasing diversity at regional tournaments.
 “ In order to create a more hospitable and educational environment, The NorthEast Region recognizes that diversity among debaters and judges is vitally important to the success of debate. Therefore, beginning with the February 2014 Regional Meeting, every potential tournament host seeking placement on the regional calendar shall offer a diversity plan for its tournament. At each regional meeting, the region will review the efficacy of previous efforts. These tournament based efforts should supplement rather than replace individual program efforts at improving diversity in hiring and recruitment.”
4.      Discussion ensued about what are diversity measures, what is diversity,
5.      Joe Schatz moves to bring resolution to vote,  Chris Kozak seconds. Motion passed (Army abstain, BC NO, all others yes)
6.      Will suggests we have one tournament where novices debate on paper to increase the flow, discussion on an experimental tournament, maybe in post round discussions, maybe no jumping till after speech, or  maybe establish norms about when is prep time/jump drive. The  suggested  norm was that prep time ends when the other team gets the file/jump drive.
7.      Vermont Internet Access- send Jillian email adress of anyone who wants wireless access at the Huber Debates by Thursday October 24.
8.      Discussion of a regional tournament tab program. Tabroom CAT seems to get more and more complicated, we all agree we need more options and more people able/willing to tab.
9.      Discussion of preference in novice divisions especially novice only judges. Then discussion of mutuality vs preference vs random with strikes. Lively discussion that frankly moved too fast for the minute taker to keep up. Was a general feeling that the method of mutuality/preference to be used at tournaments be declared. (preferably in tournament invite)
10.      Discussion of how are we going to increase the quality of our judging? Teach ins, workshops, judge training, shadow judging, tournament where novices and novice-only judges have workshop/watch/judge debates during open/jv round 6 were all discussed as possibilities.
11.     Will suggests we have an open discussion about each of our preferences maybe we can talk about judges we should move up/down, how we pref judges or get more chances.


NDT Business
1.      Rashad is NDT chair now, He asked Neil to tab the District Tournament, Chair is responsible for verification/ndt enrollment, most importantly among other responsibilities. Vik Keenan nominates Jillian Marty for next district chair, Will Baker seconds. Unanimously passed. Those not present are Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Bard. Was agreed quorum was present.

Meeting adjourned 3:19 PM



Gordie Miller
Asst Director
University of Rochester
Debate Union