Kerith Woodyard
October 8, 2008
Kerith Woodyard is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Director of Forensics at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. She holds a Ph.D from the University of Utah and is the President of Illinois’ Lincoln Parliamentary League. In addition to having coached award-winning NPDA teams for the University of Utah and Northern Illinois University, she recently coached the winner of the 136th Interstate Oratory Association national tournament, the United States’ oldest public speaking contest.
Kevin Minch
October 8, 2008
Kevin Minch is an Associate Professor of Communication and the Director of Forensics at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. He is also serving in his first term as Dean of Truman’s Joseph Baldwin Academy for Eminent Young Scholars, a summer program for academically gifted middle school students. He serves as President of the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) and as Speech, Debate, and Theater Consultant for the National Federation of State High School Associations, the national governing association for interscholastic activities in the United States. His parliamentary debate teams have won the NPDA Championship twice since 2000.
Derek Buescher
October 8, 2008
Derek Buescher, PhD, is Associate Professor in Communication Studies and Director of Forensics at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. He is President of the Western States Forensics Association and President-elect to the Board of Trustees of the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE). In addition to scholarly research on film and Disney, Professor Buescher is researches public sphere argumentation. In 2006 he coached the first team to win both the NPTE and National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) championship tournaments in the same year.
Kate Hamm
October 8, 2008
Kate Hamm has recently moved from the United States to southeast France where she maintains being active in debate, speech and theatre. She has previously earned several degrees in theatre and communication, English literature and theatre arts and has taught the full range of communication curriculum (Theatre, English, Speech and Debate) for over 22 years in Iowa, New York and Nebraska. Kate has instructed Lincoln Douglas debate at many camps in the United States and she is a founding member of the Lincoln Douglas Education Project and a National Forensics Leagues Double Diamond Coach.
Kate will be teaching the Lincoln Douglas Debate course at this year’s Institute.
Jackson B. Miller
October 8, 2008
Jackson B. Miller is an Associate Professor of Communication Arts and the Director of Forensics at Linfield College. Dr. Miller has coached the Linfield speech and debate team since 2001, and he also teaches a wide range of courses in the Communication Arts program. He has a B.S. in Interpersonal Communication from Ohio University, an M.A. in Rhetorical Criticism from Ohio University, and a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Miller’s research interests include political rhetoric, performance theory, persuasive communication, and intercultural communication. His research has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Communication Quarterly.
Miller is a certified trainer for the International Debate Education Association. He has conducted debate-training seminars in Guatemala and Turkey. Miller has also taught a course on ancient oratory in Italy through Linfield’s January term program, and will team-teach a course on global climate change in Chile in January 2009.
Chris Baron
October 8, 2008
Chris Baron has been involved with debate for 20 years. A co-founder of the Baltimore Urban Debate League, Chris has helped institutionalize successful debate programs in more than 30 public high schools and 30 middle schools in the city.
Chris is a member of the International Debate Education Association’s governing board. He coaches debate at Towson University, the most diverse debate team in the US. Chris has helped coach Towson toward their historic CEDA National championship in 2008, and Chris’ teams at Towson have earned more prize money in debates than any other university debate program.
Sergei A. Naumoff
October 8, 2008
Sergei A. Naumoff is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the Director of Forensics at Herzen University of St.Petersburg (RUSSIA). Dr.Naumoff has a M.A. in Education, Sociology and History and a Ph.D. in Political Science. He teaches such courses as Comparative Public Policy, Political Institutions and Processes in Eastern and Central Europe.
In 2000-2002 Dr.Naumoff worked as an intern in Center for European Studies at Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland).
Sergei Naumoff is also a deputy director of Open Education Center in St.Petersburg – a regional NGO that promotes debate education, democracy related education and local community activities.
Dr.Naumoff is a Board Member and a certified trainer for the International Debate Education Association. He has trained at IDEA Youth Forums in the Czech Republic (2007) and Bulgaria (2008). He has been involved in competitive debate for over 10 years as both a competitor, coach, and judge. In Russia Dr.Naumoff is organizing and holding debate-related events (tournaments, panel discussions, meetings), trainings and content sessions for high school and university students, educators and members of local communities on the issues of the democracy and civil society development, minority rights in modern Russia, extremist and Neo-Nazi movements in contemporary Russia.
Joseph P. Zompetti
October 8, 2008
Joseph P. Zompetti is an associate professor of communication at Illinois State University. He has written and published extensively in both rhetoric and argumentation, as well as coached competitive debate for over twenty years in the United States. He has also trained debaters in seven countries.