George Mason University’s excellent forensics team continued its winning ways at the 2016 American Forensics Association National Individual Events Tournament held April 1-3 at the University of Florida.
The program's director, a faculty member in the Department of Communication, announced that Mason’s team placed third in the nation as a team, marking the 27th time in its 45-year history that it has finished in the top five nationally. Mason advanced 35 speeches and performances into elimination rounds -- the most in the team’s history – and eight of those entries advanced all the way to the national final rounds.
Individual team members triumphed as well:
- Junior Nathan Leys, a Mason scholar from Iowa, won the national championship in Impromptu Speaking;
- Senior Molly Hoke, from West Virginia, was among the seventeen national All-Americans awarded in the nation;
- Three Mason students placed in the top eleven overall speakers/performers in the United States. Mason is one of only two teams in the nation to advance students into elimination rounds of all eleven events.
“I could not be more proud of this team nor the grace and honor with which they represented our great institution,” says the Director. He notes that Mason was referred to as “the classiest team," the "most heartfelt team," and the team "performing the most complex arguments" in the nation.
Full results of the competition may be found on the team’s website.
April 07, 2016
