News, Announcements, & Updates

Lincoln-Douglas Value Debate Proposed Resolutions Ready for Voting

Learn about the proposed resolutions and related analysis for the 2024-2025 season in the White Papers. In order to vote, affiliates must use the unique voting link contained in their own copy of one of the Monday News & Updates emails from [email protected].

Please contact the NCFCA office at [email protected] if you need help with your voting link.

Voting will remain open through Friday, April 5, 2024.

At-Large System and Dashboard Update

NCFCA’s Qualification System is an integral part of our competitive program.  This system has evolved over the years to strategically allow the top competitors in each event to advance to additional levels of competition at both regional and national qualifying tournaments, as well as to both the Regional and National Championships. 

A number of years ago, the Qualification Committee realized there was opportunity to fill an observed gap.  They had noted that over the course of a few seasons, when the invitations to the National Championship had all been extended and accepted, there were still a number of competitors who had done consistently well during the regular season and somehow didn’t end up with an invitation to the National Championship. Maybe the student had had a conflict with the Regionals dates, gotten sick, or just had an “off” tournament. In any case, the Committee determined that in order to have a field of what could be considered the best competitors in an event at Nationals, these consistent competitors needed an opportunity to still vie for an invitation. This led to the development and implementation of an “at-large” component to the NCFCA Qualification System. 

Until now, NCFCA only published the information and formula that allowed a competitor to calculate their at-large points. It also provided opportunity for some dedicated and mathematically-inclined investigators to try, with a range of success, to complete a spreadsheet that included all competitors across the country that would predict who would get an at-large invitation. While this is probably a worthwhile academic endeavor that hones some skill, it can also lead to misinformation that causes unnecessary confusion for parents and students. So, the Qualification Committee has decided to publish both personal at-large point earnings on individuals’ Dashboards as well as an overall updated list of competitors qualified to Nationals and a live, at-large list on the Tournament Results page of the Dashboard. This feature will be live by March 5, 2024.

On your Dashboard under Ballots for personal information: 

On your Dashboard under Tournament Results for a cumulative list: 

A few things to keep in mind as you look at this data: 

  1. NCFCA takes privacy and the importance of your personal information very seriously. We go to great lengths to ensure that multiple pieces of personally identifying information (PII) is not connected on our site. The data in the Tournament Results, Qualification, and At-large screens includes names only and purposely does not include other specific information. 
  2. Like ballots, detailed placing information will be available to the student and all adults on that family account. NOTE: You only receive at-large points if you advance to elimination rounds or are recognized at the Awards ceremony. The number of points awarded corresponds to the tournament type and your final placing in an event.
  3. The At-Large Points tab has been added. Competitors will only be listed on the At-Large Points tab if they have already qualified to Nationals at a National Open or Mixer in an event OR if they have broken in that event AT LEAST twice* this season. This ensures the value of consistency mentioned above. (*The exception to this is Moot Court due to the limited number of competitive opportunities.)
  4. At-Large invitations are only extended after ALL Regional Championships are completed and associated invitations accepted. This means that no At-Large invitations will be extended earlier than May 10, 2024. The process then generally takes 3-5 days to complete.
  5. This data is live and will change after each tournament across the country is complete. You should use it as a reference point to determine if you believe you might receive an invitation to Nationals through At-Large. It will become more predictable as Regional Championships happen, but you should not book non-refundable travel based on what you anticipate will happen. 
  6. Complete information regarding the NCFCA Qualification System is available in the Qualification and Tabulation Guide in the Resource Library. 

If you have questions, please feel free to email [email protected].

Team Policy Curriculum News & Topic Choices for 2024-2025

We are excited to announce that we will be releasing a brand new Team Policy curriculum this summer along with a resolution-specific workbook for students. We feel like this will be an excellent new resource for coaches, parents, and students to get a jump start on the season.

Voting closed on February 21 for the topic choices shown below. Our resolution team will be working on refining wording of the resolution and producing valuable resources for our families during the next few weeks and the new resolution will be announced after our Regional Championship tournaments have all concluded.

The following three topics have been thoroughly researched by our policy debate resolution team and would allow for a great season of debate.

  • Arctic/Antarctic: The north and south poles represent incredibly important regions for the United States across every area of policy and thus pose a unique educational field of study. Students would investigate ecological, military, trade, and scientific exploration efforts while considering whether engagement or disengagement with other nations is the proper course of action.
  • Central America: Central America is an oft-overlooked region of the world that has geopolitical importance to the United States as its close neighbor. The United States has been involved in Central America for a long time, and because of this, policymakers and researchers alike have long debated the ethics, efficacy, and necessity of US engagement in the region. Debaters would get to learn about some of the reasoning behind the United States’ prominent involvement in struggling nations in general through the lens of Central America by exploring how issues of poverty, instability, violence, and climate crises in other nations interlace with U.S. interests.
  • European Union Defense: This option would be oriented toward learning how the European Union (EU) works from the viewpoints of member countries, not from a US-centric point of view. It would encourage learning about the relationship between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the EU and could explore the possible range of military integration options in Europe across the differing countries.

Why did we vote so early this year and only on general topics?

We realized that in order to sustainably support the ongoing work of producing high-quality resolution-specific content, we need to allow our education and curriculum teams a considerably longer window of time to work than we have in the past. By having our affiliates choose a topic earlier and then refining a drafted resolution based on their input, we can streamline the process and let our dedicated staff and volunteers begin work with more reasonable deadlines.

We realize this change may be a surprise to some of our long-time affiliates and that the input window this year is shorter than we would like it to be, but we are asking for your grace and understanding as we work toward a new timeline that will be sustainable for our teams while still maintaining the excellence in resolution research and quality that NCFCA is known for.

What about Lincoln-Douglas Value Debate topics?

We hope to have value debate resolution topics ready for your input in March. Please watch affiliate news and update emails for the opportunity to vote on those topics.

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