The University of Northern Iowa Speech Team is off to a successful start in the new season. The team is made up of nine students who participate in public speaking competitions, primarily throughout the Midwest.
The speech team competes in three different genres for competitive public speaking, they are public addresses, interpretation events and limited preparation events. Within the three genres, there are several subcategories. Under public address, there is after dinner speaking, persuasive speaking, informative speaking and rhetorical criticism. The interpretation events include prose, poetry, dramatic interpretation, duet/duo acting and programmed oral interpretation. The limited preparation events include impromptu speaking and extemporaneous speaking.
The director of the UNI Speech Team, Sadé Barfield, is tasked with trying to coach and prepare students for the variety of different events.
“The primary thing I like to focus on, and what I think my role is as a coach, is to really help the students figure out: what it is you want to do, and how is it you want to accomplish these things? From there, I really try to help them hone their skills but I always just make sure the student is leading the direction,” Barfield said. “To prepare for these different types of events, I really try to stay up to date in terms of news, literature, make sure that I can help students figure out ideas and really try to listen. That’s a really big part of it.”
Barfield also mentioned how she wants to encourage the team to be advocates.“A big goal in college forensics is advocacy. Our goal is to help students figure out their voice and use that voice for good. The goal isn’t to become a professional actor, but rather to be able to speak intelligently, eloquently around topics that are vital and important to them.”
UNI Speech Team members enjoy participating in the interpretation events, specifically prose, dramatic interpretation and poetry.
“My favorite event is called prose, where you perform a written piece of literature with an argument as to why this story is important to society. I like being able to really dive into the character and create a unique world behind the performance,” Morgan Kielly said.
Students first choose the piece they would like to compete with in the summer or at the beginning of the school year. Once they compete in their events they may receive feedback and modify their piece.
A couple examples of the pieces students from UNI are competing with this year include a dramatic interpretation from the TV series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” as well as an after-dinner speech that is trying to educate the audience on Artificial Intelligence. The student’s comedic vehicle is that she is dating an AI.
The UNI Speech Team is unique in many ways and one of the ways is that most of the members are not communication majors.
“We usually have majors throughout the university. You would think it would be more communication students, but that is actually rarely the case. We usually have at least one speech language pathology student, we have business majors. We do have some communication majors, a lot of education majors. We represent a lot of aspects of the university,” Barfield said.
The speech team aims to be welcoming for everyone.
“Speech is for everyone. We are a welcoming environment. We’re also open for folks who aren’t necessarily interested in competing, but want to work on their public speaking skills. It’s one of the number one things employers are looking for so we’re also open to helping folks with that,” Barfield said.
Kielly also mentioned how one of her favorite parts of being on the team is the people. “I have created the best relationships on this team and truly met some of my best friends. It’s just a fun and supportive group and they make all the stress worth it.”
One of the main goals the speech team has this year is for everyone to qualify for nationals.
“(The goal is to) have the entire team qualify for nationals and then from there it’s really what the students want. I mean, as a coach you want to see everyone take first place, but I really like to know what it is they want out of this experience. Because, at the end of the day, you can’t take a trophy to a job interview. However, we can take those skills,” Barfield said. “We have two graduating seniors. Our big goal for them is to have an incredible experience at nationals, ideally break to ‘out rounds’, but more importantly continue with our high placement rate after graduation.”
The team has had a great start to the competition season, taking several top-three placements in their first two tournaments. In the beginning of the month at the Jackrabbit Joust Speech and Debate Tournament at South Dakota State University the weekend of Oct. 5 and 6, Sarah Elser placed second in dramatic interpretation and Abby Akers placed fifth in prose. While at the tournament, both Elser and Akers qualified for the National Forensics Association National Tournament.
During the weekend of Oct. 19 and 20 the speech team competed at the Mankato Swing competition at Minnesota State University Mankato. For the first day of competition, Elser placed first in dramatic interpretation and third in prose. Akers placed second in both prose and dramatic interpretation.
On the second day of Mankato Swing, Elser placed first in both prose and dramatic interpretation, and Akers placed second in prose and third in dramatic interpretation. Ryan Sales placed fourth in prose and Kielly placed fifth in prose. The team also placed third on the second day of competition. The next competition the UNI Speech Team will compete at is the Norton Invitational at Bradley University. This will take place in the first weekend of November.
Those interested in joining the speech team can either contact Barfield or attend one of the meetings in Lang 218. The meetings take place every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 p.m.
