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Recruiting Tips |
These are recruiting tips that people from across the country, mainly college directors, sent me.
MIKE KRUEGER’S
GET NOVICES TIPS
Our recruiting efforts are largely dedicated to seeing that
our forensic
students are good students.
Thus we put more weight on high school
grades and SAT scores than on debate experience although the
later may be
important as well.
1. We try to host at least one overnight campus visit in the
spring.
Prospective students stay with current team members and the
member show them
around, take them to class, etc. Doing at all once is a great help in
talking to all recruits at the same time.
2. Current team members said they liked getting personal
phone calls from me
and other team members.
Since our school is small and promotes personal
attention, we try to do our part by maintaing contact with
prospective
students.
3. In addition to phone calls, current team members write
notes to
prospective students thanking them for their interest in the
squad...they
basically serve as the forensics team contact person with
the recruit.
4. Prospective students have also traveled with us to
tournaments to get an
idea of what college forensics is like, as well as how our
team acts and
interacts. Those
have gone over very well too.
5. We plan to judge high school tournaments in our area as a
way of
recruiting as well as giving my kids practice being on the
other side of the
pen.
6. We also hosted a high school tournament as a way of
getting prospective
students to our campus.
Some of our current members attended our past
tournaments and said they probably wouldn't have considered
our school had it
not been for the high school tournament. We don't host one anymore because
we have grown too big for our budget! But it helped at the time.
7. We have a brochure about our program that is mailed out
to prospective
students. The
brochure is mailed out by our admissions office. A letter
listing our scholarship is also sent to prospective
students.
8. Keeping touch with students over the summer before coming
to school is
really big...keeps them in touch and involved with the team,
even though they
really haven't started classes yet. That's more on the retention side of new
recruits than new recruiting per se.
I am sure that a lot of people will hit on the main points
of recruiting, but
these are some things I have learned since I have been at
Baylor.
The best advice I have for recruiting is to provide anyone
who might listen with
information about what you are doing. The best students with whom I have worked
have been those who sought me out--not necessarily those
whom I sought. Just
getting some visibility so that people in your university
and your area know you
are there. Flyers, the school paper, press releases, you and
your students
talking about their efforts in classes, talking among other
faculty--all of that
information may trickle down to someone who will be
interested.
One good way to get visibility is community service. Baylor
has long had a
commitment to involving students in community service. Waco
has also had a
significant involvement in Clinton's youth summit idea. We
do a fall and a
spring community service project. That is good for our kids, and gets us some
involvement with people who might not have known we exist.
We also widely advertise our public debates in the community
as well as at the
University. That reminds the community that we exist. I have had several students
who have walked in the door because a friend of a friend
heard about something
we were doing and thought they should check us out.
The list of people who should be informed includes your
alumni. Some of my best
recruiters are my alums--and their parents. The students fan out all over the
country when they leave and they make great contacts. Moreover, the parents are
excited by the way debate has contributed to their kids'
lives. They will talk
to their friends and those they meet and send good
kids--even if they have no
debate experience--your direction.
Save for two students, all of the CSU-Chico debaters started
as novices
and were recruited from our campus. How did we do it? We
host an on-campus
rookie tournament every semester. The students from the
public speaking
class compete against each other in persuasive speaking,
informative, and
impromptu. The three sections of the argumentation and
debate compete each
each other in a four round tournament. We give the students
extra credit
in our class AND they can receive an additional unit of
credit for signing
up for the tournament. It's been an enormous success. This
semester we
have 251 students signed up for the rookie! Our department
loves the
rookie tournament because it generates much FTE. And, the
students who do
well, win hardware (even some who don't), end up traveling
with the team.
This last year we had a master's student who put together
the Rookie
Tournament Handbook. If you are interested in starting a
tourney at your
school and would like this resource, let me know.
Kristina Schriver, Ph.D.
Director of Forensics
California State University-Chico
http://debate.uvm.edu/broadcast.html.
There have been a couple posts in here asking questions
about how to get
novices and to keep them.
Well, once I get them to a tournament, I have them.
I rarely lose them
once the tournament "hooks" them.
My trouble the past
two years is recruiting them from campus. We try damn hard at MTSU to recruit
novices, and three years ago, we had a bonanza, and they are
currently my
varsity squad.
So, here is what my squad does to recruit:
I send out letters to presidential scholars.
We plaster the campus with flyers in the beginning (first
week) of the year.
We promote debate with our webpage.
We send notices to professors.
We publish our meeting times in our newspapers.
We promote by word of mouth.
We distribute literature and talk to people at the
organization fair.
I guarantee that people know about us.
However, we don't have many novices. why?
1. students
work. students can get off for the
weekends, or afford to. this
is the number one reason why I don't have more novices. It is a shame that
they have to work, but it is realistic. I have lost almost every novice the
past two years for this reason.
2. debate isn't what
they thought. (they imagined debate to
be like parli
frankly). They
didn't want to do research, they didn't want to learn about
subjects that were un-interesting (yes, even last year on
the civil rights
topic), and so on.
3. time
committment. Ok, we require novices to
work about 5 hours per week
at the beginning. We
set up times to work with them in small groups. yet
this is too much time.
It would take away from their other activities.
These are the three primary reasons.
If people have ideas about how to get around them or to
preach the reasons to
debate which go beyond the norm, I would appreciate it.
We don't have scholarships to give to MBA students (like
they would come to
MTSU), so we basically live and die with our novice
recruitment and training.
And, if we have trouble hooking people, then i can see the
problem that other
schools would have.
I ask for help, and help those who don't have novices or
know how to attract
them.
thanks.
Mike
1. Heavy campaigning on campus... we have brochures and
fliers all over
the place the first few weeks of each semester.
2. Recruiting in public speaking classes... we go to all of
the public
speaking and argumentation classes (the ones required for
general ed oral
comm) and hype the program.
3. We talk to anyone and everyone who will listen for a
minute or two.
:-)
> >Thought this might be useful recruiting information
for DOFs trying to
> >convince students to become involved in
forensics. I've taken it from
> the
> >"Career News," an in‑house
publication on the Humboldt State campus.
The
> >article was entitled "Skills Employers Look
For."
> >
> >"The top skill employers seek in new hires is
the ability to communicate.
> >Students would do well to take every opportunity to
hone this important
> >ability.
Join organizations and participate in projects, particularly in
> a
> >leadership role.
Take speech courses that focus on public speaking or
> >interpersonal skills. Take every opportunity to develop your writing
> >skills.
> >
> >The annual employment forecast by the National
Association of Colleges
> and
> >Employers, Job Outlook '99, included survey results
focusing on the top
> >skills and personal characteristics sought in
hiring. They are:
> >
> >* Communication skills
> >* Work experience
> >* Motivation/initiative
> >* Teamwork skills
> >* Leadership abilities
> >* GPA/academic credentials
> >* Technical skills
> >* Interpersonal skills
> >* Analytical skills
> >* Ethics"
> >
> >
> >These were ranked in order of their importance to
prospective employers.
> >The article goes on to say other stuff that you
already know about the
> >importance of comm. skills, but I thought the above
might be useful.
> >
> >G. Young
Hello Jim,
My name is Rafael Bito and I am Ede Warner's Grad Assistant
at U of
Louisville. A reason
that I joined the debate not long ago was because I
was genuinely interested in the activity. I think that many students do
not understand that one is able to walk on as a novice. Public
announcements such as flyers or Campus news ads are always a
good thing.
What we did this semester was to recruit thru our
Argumentation and Debate
course. We gave the
class a competitive option wherein they participated
in two tournements and did not have to write a couple of
papers, and also
received some leniancy on tests. This gave us three extra novice teams
and half of them are interested in staying on next
semester. The
retention, I think, came from the enjoyment we facilitated
nightly at each
tournement and their general improvement from the first
tournement to the
next.
As for high school recruitment. The Louisville Debate Society
facilitates/runs the local county high school
tournements. It is much
like the urban debate leagues started in SF, NY, Atlanta,
etc. Urban or
local debate leagues are great venues for recruitment. Scholoraships are
often offere to students in high school that are interested
in continuing
their education and debate career. This is probably not a unique
practice, but a good relationship in that College debaters
and coaches
interact with the high school students has shown to be
effective. Ede
Warner recruited me from meeting me at the Bay Area Urban
Debate League
summer camp.
Let me know if you need any more details. Good luck.
RAFAEL
------------------------------------
I graduated and I don't debate any more...
I attended CSU Sacramento Undergrad.
My high school did not have a debate program.
I was recruited (recruited myself) out of a Com Stuies
Argumentation class.
On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, Jim Hanson wrote:
> what do you do to get more novices?
Hook up with pre-law frat Phi Alpha Delta if your campus has
a chapter,
or seek out the pre-law advisor for your school
Recruit in speech/argumentation classes, logic classes, and
math classes, etc
Be nice to existion novices so they don't have horror
stories.
>
> how do you connect with high school programs?
Send your debaters to judge high school tourneys
>
> what have you done to increase outreach to diverse
groups of students?
Invite everyone to try debate; our coach would travel anyone
to a local
tournament so they could get a feel for debate
>
Tiffany
----------------------------------------
perform a
fun debate in front of an apogee or honors program of junior high
students
we only make
an announcement at school over the loudspeaker with all
the other
announcements but make it sound attractive (like talking
about its
benefits, travelling, talking, current events, friends,
etc... we too have a small team and this doesn't
bring in a large
number but
keeps the team at about a steady 10 members that stay
dedicated
the entire year. also, have current
members recruit their
friends.
I was faced
with similar circumstances last year, and well, I can give you a
few pointers
on what ***NOT*** to do. First of all
don't pressure any of
your close
friends to come and join. They'll come
in at first cuz' u say so
but then see
all the work and book it... Just
mention to them there are
"debate
tryouts" or something like that and it'll get in there head... that's
what worked
the best.
Flyers don't
really work (we plastered them everywhere)... I think what you
need to do
is spark interest in debate and get those ppl who are willing to
become
interested, not reach out to those who already are... Maybe have like
mock debates
with free pizza or something =)
One year we
sent out a flyer to all people who enrolled in the speech class
asking
anybody who wanted to debate in high school to go to the school one
day. When the people showed up, we (the
experienced debate team) told them
about LD and
team. This consisted of explaining it,
Q and A, and then a demo
of
each. Afterward, we had a two week free
camp. We taught them how to
debate and
gave them photocopies of some of our camp ev.
Then we had some
practice
rounds. We ended up getting 3 novice
teams and 2 LDers.
The best way
to get new kids is to get them to take the class and have TONS
of contact
with varsity members. Odds are that if
they have friends that are
staying in
debate or are already on the squad they will want to stay. As for
wanting to
attract people to join in the first place, have a nice teacher and
offer lots
of extra credit for things like attending tournaments. Lots of
kids have
more fun at the tournaments, rather than sitting around a debate
lab.
----
this is all
I got... If I get more, Ill get them to ya
thanks
Jakob
Waco High
Debate
TX
----------------------------------------------
The Great Plains Forensic
Conference has recently been formed. We have no
formal officers. Jeff Gentry of
Southwestern Oklahoma State University
(gentryj@swosu.edu
) can provide a copy of our statement of
philosophy/objectives.
-------------------------------
Assistant
Director of Forensics
Creighton
University
***A great
recruiting source for us has been the basic public speaking
class. There is usually one "stand-out"
in each class, some of whom can
be persuaded
to give the team a try. We also send
letters to all incoming
Freshmen who
have previous experience in debate and forensics as indicated
on their
application forms. Finally, returning
team members are
encouraged
to recruit others from their own high schools.
-------------------------------
Capital University
We have many new members join
because we set up a booth at the student
activities fair each year. Additionally, we have contests for the
debaters who
bring the most new people into our
squad.
--------------------------------------
Appalachian State University
I recruit a lot from the classes
within our department like public speaking and argumentation and advocacy. I also recruit from local high schools. We have been fortunate enough to have been
involved in the creation of two new high school programs in the area. My students and I have done workshops for
these schools. We stay in contact with
them by judging at tournaments they host and answering questions when they have
any.
----------------------------
Boston
College
Tips for recruiting:
The best way to recruit students
is to expose them to debate. Hold an
on campus public debate and invite
students from other classes to
attend. Teach a debate class to
students without any experience, and
there will be someone from the
class interested in joining the debate
team.
---------------------------
WILLIAM AND
JEWELL
As you can
maybe tell all of the above info was already available in a
brochure
we've produced in house to give to prospective students in person
and through
the mail. So I guess one tip is have all of the answers to the
questions
above available in hard copy for interested students.
We try to
make sure that some mebers of the squad are available when
students
show up for a campus visit. We then let
our students talk about
why they
like debate directly with the students we are meeting.
Steve and
Gina offer to be campus liasions to deal with questions
prospective
students might have about any aspect of campus, like majors,
financial
aid, etc. We let them know that we are
happy to be a real face to
interact
with when dealing with the institution even in terms of non-debate
aspects.
We try to make
it to local HS tournaments.
We encourage
our students to make it to local HS tournaments to judge.
Hope the
project goes well, thanks for the opportunity.
Best of
Luck,
--------------------------
Middle
Tennesee State University
What we do
to recruit students:
We don't
recruit high school students for two reasons:
1. There are VERY FEW high school debaters in
Tennessee
2. We have very limited scholarships
So, we have
to recruit raw novices and go from there.
We recruit
novices the following ways:
1. We target incoming Freshmen that are
"Presidential Scholars."
Those people
get a campus
scholarship that is full tuition, room and board. We send them
letters
specifically encouraging them to try debate.
2. We target second year Poli Sci, History,
Philosophy, and other Liberal Arts
majors with
over a 3.0 their first year of college and send them letters
specifically
encouraging them to try debate.
3. We hold an Open House, putting up flyers
around campus, having professors
annnounce
that we are having the open house, and so on, to try and get students
to try
debate. We generally get some people to
learn about it.
4. We ask professors in the speech department
to recommend students who might
be willing
to participate and would make good candidates.
5. We engage in public debates and suggest that
people stop by and talk to us
about
intercollegiate debate if what they heard is interesting to them.
We generally
have 2-3 varsity/junior varsity teams and 2-3 novice teams after
engaging in
these recruiting activities.
The problem
of not having scholarships is that it is hard to get students since
so many have
to work, and debate takes away from that ability.
Thanks for
engaging this project! I'm sure that it
will be most helpful.
Mike
-----------------------------
University
of Georgia
TIP--
Students should select a school that they will enjoy if they choose
to leave
debate for any period of their matriculation.
TIP-- It's
not the size of the initial scholarship but the conditions
for
maintaining the award and the real cost of the institution that
students
should consider.
--------------------
George Mason
University
Actually,
there is an old article by Kevin Dean and somebody else (his
significant
other?) when they were at Ball State that is just fabulous on
recruitment. They basically focus on _on-campus_
recruitment, which is
the focus we
have taken at GMU. I'm not sure I can
add much to the
article's
great ideas!!