Western Carolina University\u2019s communication department hosted its first public speaking contest on April 25.<\/p>\n
Mykala Anderson and Cora Haste planned and executed the event. As part of their honor contract, they \u201cplanned the event from start to finish,\u201d said Anderson.<\/p>\n
They began this project as the department head, Dr. Scott Eldredge wanted to do the event, but no one in the department had time.<\/p>\n
\u201cCora and I were given full control to create, plan and execute the competition,\u201d said Anderson.<\/p>\n
The Speak Your Mind <\/i>public speaking contest had eight contestants nominated from COMM-201 classes. Students presented five-minute speeches to compete for cash prizes.<\/p>\n
Winners received $300 for first place, $200 for second and $100 for third.<\/p>\n
The contestants were Lucas Atercio, Tirzah Blazis, Madison Hopp, Zecheriah Hoppes, Naomi Millis, Amber Robbins, Kiki Shepherd and Alex Stewart.<\/p>\n
Zecheriah Hoppes placed first, and Amber Robbins and Naomi Millis placed second and third.<\/p>\n
Contestants were judged by a rubric similar to COMM-201\u2019s persuasive speech assignments \u201cwith specific notes to the appropriate language, clarity with the thesis, dressing in business casual and physical behaviors,\u201d said Anderson, co-creator of Speak Your Mind<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The judging panel consisted of communication professors, Dr. Mindy Weathers, Dr. Candy Noltensmeyer and senior communication student Liam Bridgeman.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to get non-COMM-201 professors to be on our judges panel since the competition was specifically for COMM-201 students to present their persuasive speeches,\u201d said Anderson.<\/p>\n
The event goals were to generate excitement around the department and public speaking while highlighting students’ personal projects. Additionally, Anderson and Haste wanted to encourage healthy competition, provide a professional development opportunity and create a well-spirited environment with community building and friendly competition.<\/p>\n
Anderson and Haste hope to see Speak Your Mind<\/i> become a recurring event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to say thank you to our judges and contestants for participating and making the event as successful as it was,\u201d said Anderson and Haste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Western Carolina University\u2019s communication department hosted its first public speaking contest on April 25. Mykala Anderson and Cora Haste planned and executed the event. As part of their honor contract, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3372,"featured_media":18153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[329,353],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-department-news","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18154,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152\/revisions\/18154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}