THE KEY Spring 2006 President's Column Dr. Sandra Alspach, President Ferris State University Midterm on our campus is a good time for reflecting on where we are now and where we want to be by the end of the semester, for faculty as well as students. I’ll bet many of you are looking at how your competition teams are lining up for end-of-the-year tournaments. You made your decision about where to dedicate your budget early in fall. Now it’s up to your students to be ready for a wonderful climax to the season. I hope to see that many of you are taking advantage of the Pi Kappa Delta National Comprehensive Tournament as a great way to put the fine sandpaper finish on your students’ performances, whether you choose the PKD tournament as your season finale or head off to other national tournaments. The news from Tom Huebner Tournament Manager in terms of room reservations leads me to hope that this could be our biggest “off-year” PKD event yet. In the intensity of the competition season, I hope you’ve remembered the theme of the 2007 Convention and Tournament and the President’s challenge for 2007 – Civic Engagement. We will eagerly await reports of the wonderful activities your chapters have directed to encourage participation in the communities in which we live. Remember, civic engagement is a broad term for any activity that reminds us of the responsibilities we have as citizens to protect and extend the privileges we enjoy as Americans. If you’re still unsure about what kinds of activities to sponsor, go to the American Democracy Project website at www.aascu.org and read about what students are doing on other campuses. Civic engagement projects can be a wonderful way to introduce Pi Kappa Delta to your students involved in communication activities besides forensics competition. Our membership provides for recognition of students who make their contributions in many communication areas, like broadcasting, public relations, journalism, student government leadership. For any student you nominate to receive Pi Kappa Delta recognition, community service is a criterion. What better way to honor that student leader who has demonstrated “the Art of Persuasion, Beautiful and Just” and served their communities? Planning is an important part of the President’s job. Host Ed Hinck is entering the one-year-out planning stage for what looks to be a great 2007 Convention and Tournament at Central Michigan University. The Province of the Greater Northeast is gearing up to welcome you to one of our “western outposts”, a delightful contrast to the eastern flavor of Baltimore in 2003. And we are actively recruiting new chapters to PKD in Michigan to assist Central Michigan in the fun of hosting a national event. Finally, planning at the concept level is happening for our Centennial celebration in 2013. If you have interest in working on any aspect of the Centennial, contact me or any member of the steering committee: R. David Ray, Michael Bartanen, Tony Allison, or Gary Horn. National Secretary/Treasurer's Column PKD Financial Update Dr. Bill Hill University of North Carolina - Charlotte      According to our Secretary/Treasurer – the organization is presently in good financial shape. We are continually looking for ways to conserve on your association’s finances, so please help us out in that process. MINUTES OF FALL NATIONAL COUNCIL MEETING     Since we are now publishing The Key on-line, we would ask that you read the minutes of the business meetings on the same website. Many of the issues and topics we deal with are of major concern to your programs as well as to the health and well-being of PKD.     Those minutes can be found under the following link on the PKD Homepage: PKD National Council Meeting Fall 2005 PRESIDENT-ELECT’S COLUMN Dr. Tom Huebner Carson-Newman College We are looking forward to having a great experience in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the NCT by PKD!  If you haven’t yet discovered, Gatlinburg is truly a tourist mecca—you can find anything from indoor mini-golf to haunted houses all within easy walking distance of the hotel.  Please do not hesitate to let us know if you have questions about the area and we will do our best to point you in the right direction.  This tournament represents the hard work of a lot of dedicated people.  Big thanks to Scott Jensen and Glenda Treadway for supervising their respective tab rooms and for working to make this a special experience to those in attendance.  My hope is that you are discovering what makes PKD a special organization and how membership will support and enhance what you do in the classroom! PAST PRESIDENT'S COLUMN Dr. Susan Millsap Otterbein College I am presently reviewing the proposals for NCA panels we will sponsor in November 2006. We have many good submissions and we will make those panels public as quickly as we know them. Please plan to join us in San Antonio, Texas and attend these panels. PROVINCE COORDINATOR REPORT Ms. Gina Jensen Webster University Welcome to Gatlinburg!! I am very excited to be here as I am sure you are as well. I am looking forward to some good competition and reuniting with my PKD colleagues. As province coordinator, I am lucky enough to get to work as a liaison between the provinces and the national council. As a liaison, I would love to meet with those who are interested in order to get your ideas and input so that I can continue to speak on your behalf at council meetings. Specifically, I would love a chance to find out what great things your province has been up to since we last met and any general ideas that you have about the provinces and our provincial structure. Are they working? Not working? Too big? Too small? Just right? Somewhere in-between? Because I am interested in having the best working model for our provinces and provincial structure, I have created a survey. Through that survey’s responses, as well as interactions with PKD colleagues and provincial officers, I plan to generate recommendations to present this summer when your national council meets in Michigan. I also wanted to take this chance to spread the word about the “Outstanding Provincial Recognition” Award that I have begun. This award is given once a semester and is intended to keep chapters involved in and thinking about Pi Kappa Delta. One award per province is given on recommendation of the province governors. I decided that the best way to kick off the award would be to name your province governors as the first winners. They work hard for your provinces and I wanted to recognize them for this. These awards will be given semi-annually, and whenever possible given out at a PKD event such as this one. Finally, I wanted to let you know that I have revised the Province Officer Handbook and it is available this weekend. If you are a province officer, I will be seeking you out to get this document to you. Have a great tournament! I am looking forward to visiting with as many of you as possible. Professional Development Committee Dr. Phillip Voight Gustavus Adolphus College Call for Papers and Panel Proposals For the 2007 PKD Professional Development Conference Papers and panel proposals are being solicited for the 2007 PKD Professional Development Conference, to be held in conjunction with the national tournament. Educators, students, coaches and alumni are all invited to apply. Conference proceedings will be published. Papers and panels addressing the tournament theme: “Civic Engagement -- the Heart of Democracy” are particularly welcomed, as are panels or papers on chapter-level fundraising and program development. For more information, please contact Phillip Voight at 507-933-7369 or via e-mail at pvoight@gac.edu. Paper and panel proposals should be submitted no later than December 15th, 2006. Call for Submissions for PKD’s Undergraduate Research Panel at the 2007 NCA Convention Undergraduates are encouraged to submit a completed paper in any area of communication studies, forensics or related fields for consideration for inclusion in the 2007 National Communication Association conference in San Antonio, Texas. After going through a process of blind review, the top five papers will be selected for recognition and presentation at the conference. Three copies of each paper with detachable cover-pages should be submitted no later than May 1st to Phillip A. Voight, Director of Forensics, Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, St. Peter, MN 56082. Contact pvoight@gac.edu for further information      Charter & Standards and Institutional Research Ms. Amy Veuleman McNeese State University During the holidays, I completed a tremendous amount of work on my house, shopped furiously, and dedicated myself to working on a new website for Pi Kappa Delta. Amy Meeks has served diligently over the last several years as the Webmaster of PKD. She was ready to hand over the reins of the site. We were heartbroken to see her go as she has done such as amazing job of posting information pertinent to PKD. This lead to many discussions about the future of our web presence. Thus, a new domain and site was born! I am happy to announce that our new website, www.pikappadelta. com is nearly complete. You can visit the site now and find many of the resources that were available on the prior URL. We are still working to transfer many of the photo files, but hope to have the website complete by the end of the National Invitational with new results and photos. I am hopeful that this will be a way to encourage the Provinces to develop publishable material so that we can keep up with one another and our accomplishments. I am also hoping to start up a moderated message board for posting information about upcoming tournaments in our respective provinces. If you have anything that you would like to see on the new website please send all questions/ announcements/ photos to webmaster@pikappadelta.com Best of luck this weekend! HISTORIAN’S REPORT Dr. Michael Bartanaen Pacific Lutheran University HISTORIAN’S REPORT – 2005 Fall Council Meeting November 17-20, 2005 - Boston, MA The Squaxin tribe (“People of the Waters”) selects one of its members to be “the rememberer,” the one who memorizes the tribe’s stories, its wisdom and traditions. The theme for the Historian for 2005-07 is to identify, propose and implement strategies to strengthen the organization’s commitment to honoring and understanding PKD’s stories, wisdom and traditions. Continued on next page Historian’s Report Continued: Update on Initiatives for 2005-07 “Archives as Living History.” The first initiative for 2005-07 is creation of a strategic plan for the PKD archives. The plan would consider, among other potential ideas: SWOT analysis of PKD archives.   Digitalization of some or all archive materials. Comprehensive indexing of archives. Proactive acquisition of additional archival materials Creation of an archive endowment Creation of an archive network with other communication/forensics organizations Creation of a permanent position of PKD archivist. Update: Summer Council instruction was to begin, with Sandra and Tom’s assistance, to develop a strategic plan for the archives. I have collected considerable material about the opportunities and challenges of digitalizing our archives. Investigation continues. I will confer with Sandra and Tom about what they have found. “A Hundred Years of Pictures.” This initiative would begin preparation for the PKD Centennial by soliciting the submission of pictures from individuals and chapters which visually document the history of the organization. The photographs would be digitalized and made available on the web site. A photographic display would be added to the traveling Hall of Fame exhibition. The organization might also consider publication of a picture book as part of centennial observance. Update: This initiative was to be referred to the Centennial Planning Committee. “The Legacy of Leadership.” A third initiative would be to develop and implement strategies for creating a more complete video archive or interviews with living PKD past-presidents and encouraging their use by chapters and scholars. This would build upon prior efforts began in the 1980’s and more recently done in a video created by Webster University students and shown at a national convention. Update: None “Forensics and Vocation: Celebrating Those Who Make a Difference.” This initiative would celebrate the ‘vocation’ of forensics training and PKD membership by creating an “Order of Attainment” to accompany the “Hall of Fame.”   Update: Initiative was adopted at Summer Council meeting and instruction was made for Historian to present an implementation plan at November meeting. This implementation plan is attached as a separate report. Student Representatives Ms. Andrea Carlile Student Representative At-Large Hello Pi Kappa Delta, For those who did not know I was in Bangalore India for the semester, thus my lack of connection, but I’ve been back in forensics action since January. I have been working on the national service project: Dress for Success. Hopefully your chapters were able to bring some gently worn women’s suits to the NCT to donate. This is somewhat of a test run for what I hope will turn into an annual event. If all goes well, I plan to continue the project for Pi Kap Nats at Central Michigan in 2007. I would love to have feedback on the service project. What you like, dislike, and anything else. Please contact me via e-mail, acarlile@gac.edu. Also, this upcoming NCA in fall of 2006 in San Antonio, TX, Pi Kappa Delta will be honoring student research papers in the field of communications. So all of you interested please submit your papers, please see Phil Voigt’s column in the Key for deadlines and requirements. Students will present their papers in a panel at NCA. I hope you all enjoy your time in Gatlinburg and feel free to stop me and let me know ideas, concerns of yours, also if you just want to say “hi.” Ms. Shawna Nordwick Student Representative - Provincial This time of year seems to be the busiest of all. Classes are drawing to a close but there are hundreds of things to do before the semester ends. Going to classes, studying, writing papers, and taking exams can seem so overwhelming. Trying to keep school, work, extra-curricular activities, and a social life balanced can be a huge task. There seems so much to do! As the competitive forensics season draws to a close, I hope that everyone can take a moment to look back at the year and know that it was a success. Many have trophies galore to indicate to themselves and the community that they are excellent within their field. Others have reached new personal goals; speaker points have been consistently higher, more rounds have been won, and extra events have been taken on. Teams grew closer together through competitive successes, losses, and even through traveling long hours to get to competitions. Everyone can look back on this year and know that they have become better communicators. It has been a pleasure to compete alongside all of you this season. Every time that I travel with my team, I am amazed at the talent we see! The effort that the forensics community puts into their events is evident. Each competition makes the hours spent practicing seem worthwhile. Events seem to get better and better as the year unfolds. All too quickly this year is coming to an end. Rather than being upset about the closing of the year, I look forward to next year. I already can’t wait for it to begin! I anticipate debate resolutions, breaking news for extemp questions, and finding that perfect piece of literature for interpretative events. I am starting to formulate all kinds of ideas about how I want next year to be. I hope that all of you are as excited for next year as I am. I know that my school, Central Michigan University, looks forward to hosting Pi Kappa Delta next year. We can’t wait to see you in 2007! EDITOR’S REPORT Dr. Nina-Jo Moore Appalachian State University The next issue of THE FORENSIC will be the Winter of 2006 and is about to be published within the next few weeks. I would like to keep the “Shared Memories” theme flowing through the next few issues, so watch for a continuance of that theme, plus we have some good research articles out with our readers at the present time. I have made a decision that I will accept electronic submissions for THE FORENSIC. I asked that you submit it in Word format (since that is what our printer uses), and that you do no special formatting – especially on paragraphs and lines (graphs and tables, of course, need the special formatting). I have to be able to merge documents when I put the issues together, and it becomes almost impossible with some of the special formatting those of you who are computer gurus do, so please just type a regular document. As for THE KEY, the Fall 2005 issue was posted the second week of September. We did hear your desires to still have it printed and sent, and we are pursuing that. As a compromise, I took printed copies to both NCA in Boston. We will post this issue to the website, but as you can see, we have printed copies for the National Comprehensive Tournament in Gatlinburg in March of 2006. Please consider submitting articles to THE FORENSIC – we have had some excellent ones, and I am looking for more! Submit by e-mail to: moorenj@appstate.edu or by snail mail to: Nina-Jo Moore, College of Fine & Applied Arts, Appalachian State University, 214 Locust St., Boone, NC 28608 Phone: (828)262-2171 Enjoy the tournament, folks! Best of Luck Attendees at the National Honorary Tournament!!!