Rice University Speech and Debate, the George R. Brown Forensic Society

Rice Speech and Debate Brings Home 91 Awards in Fall 2024!

The George R. Brown Forensics Society, Rice’s speech and debate team, closed out a very successful semester of competition last weekend. Using their voices to express themselves, empower others, and enhance their education, the team works hard to represent Rice with excellence as academic competitors.

As of November 22, Rice has three of the top ten and four of the top twenty parliamentary debate teams in the nation in the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence rankings!

Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi are ranked 1st
Manna Trevino and Anna Phan are ranked 3rd
Arjun Surya and Kyle Sanderfer are ranked 6th
Rohan Gupta and Travis Johnson are ranked 14th

In addition, the team has qualified ten speech events for the American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament!

Individual tournament results are listed below.

Hill Country Swing, University of Texas at Austin, September 21-22
Part 1:
Maya Adhikari:
2nd Persuasive Speaking
Daijah Wilson:
5th Persuasive Speaking
Pranav Nagajothi:
5th Extemporaneous Speaking
Shay Olaifa:
6th Program Oral Interpretation

Part 2:
Maya Adhikari:
2nd Persuasive Speaking
Daijah Wilson:
4th Persuasive Speaking
Chloe Pesqueira:
3rd Persuasive Speaking

Rice University Classic, September 28-29
In addition to competing, Rice played host to competitors from across the nation on our campus.
Part 1:
Debate Sweepstakes: 1st
Overall Sweepstakes: 2nd

Catherine Cheng:
4th Program Oral Interpretation
Caleb Lin:
5th Poetry Interpretation
Vedant Khadiya:
6th Impromptu Speaking

Debate Awards:
Anna Phan and Manna Trevino:
Semifinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

William Wang and Rohan Gupta:
Octafinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Debate speaker awards:
1st Kyle Sanderfer
4th Arjun Surya
5th Ridhi Dondeti
6th Anna Phan
7th Travis Johnson

Overall, Rice won 22 separate debates.

Part 2:
Chloe Pesqueira:
3rd Impromptu Speaking
4th Persuasive Speaking
Pranav Nagajothi:
4th Extemporaneous Speaking
Catherine Cheng:
4th Program Oral Interpretation
Vedant Khadiya:
4th Impromptu Speaking
5th Poetry Interpretation

Sweepstakes: 2nd
Swing Sweepstakes: 2nd

Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, October 12-13

Debate Sweepstakes:
2nd Place

Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi:
2nd Place Parliamentary Debate
Arjun Surya and Kyle Sanderfer:
Semifinalists, Parliamentary Debate
William Wang and Ridhi Dondeti:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate
Anna Phan and Manna Trevino
Octafinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Debate speaker awards:
2nd Nikki Stancik
6th Kyle Sanderfer
9th William Wang
10th Arjun Surya

Overall, Rice won 19 separate debates.

Battle at the Alamo, San Antonio, TX October 18-19

Part 1:
Pranav Nagajothi:
3rd Extemporaneous Speaking
Vedant Khadiya:
5th Impromptu Speaking

Part 2:
Pranav Nagajothi:
1st Extemporaneous Speaking
Vedant Khadiya:
5th Extemporaneous Speaking
Pranav Nagajothi:
3rd Impromptu Speaking

Fall Lucky 7 Asynchronous Invitational, November 11-15
Pranav Nagajothi:
1st Impromptu Speaking

University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, November 2-3

4-year Sweepstakes 2nd place
4-year Swing Sweepstakes 3rd Place

Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi:
2nd Place Parliamentary Debate

Arjun Surya and Kyle Sanderfer:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Anna Phan and Manna Trevino:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

William Wang and Rohan Gupta:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Ridhi Dondeti and Travis Johnson:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Debate speaker awards:
2nd Rija Naqvi
3rd Nikki Stancik
4th Manna Trevino

Overall, Rice won 23 separate debates.

Speech Awards:
Chloe Pesqueira:
3rd Persuasive Speaking
4th Impromptu Speaking
5th Extemporaneous Speaking

Maya Adhikari:
4th Persuasive Speaking

Mustang Invitational, Stockton, CA, November 2

Chloe Pesqueira:
2nd Persuasive Speaking
3rd Impromptu Speaking
5th Extemporaneous Speaking

Maya Adhikari:
2nd Communication Analysis
3rd Persuasive Speaking
6th Extemporaneous Speaking

Southern and Northern Atlantic Forensic Union, Seton Hall University, November 9-10

Part 1:
Sweepstakes:
1st Place, Limited Entry Sweeps
Vedant Khadiya:
1st Extemporaneous Speaking
Caleb Lin:
2nd Poetry Interpretation
Catherine Cheng:
2nd Program Oral Interpretation
Daijah Wilson:
4th Persuasive Speaking
Vedant Khadiya:
Finalist, Impromptu Speaking

Part 2:
Caleb Lin:
3rd Poetry Interpretation
Catherine Cheng:
3rd Program Oral Interpretation
Daijah Wilson:
4th Informative Speaking

AFA-NST District III Fall Qualifying Tournament, Online, November 16

Daijah Wilson:
2nd Persuasive Speaking
4th Informative Speaking
Shay Olaifa:
4th Program Oral Interpretation
Caleb Lin
4th Poetry Interpretation

William Jewell College, November 15-17, Liberty, MO
Part 1:

Debate speaker awards:
3rd Anna Phan
4th Manna Trevino
10th Nikki Stancik

Rohan Gupta and Travis Johnson:
Octafinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Anna Phan and Manna Trevino:
Quarterfinalists, Parliamentary Debate

Overall, Rice won 12 separate debates.

Part 2:
Rija Naqvi and Nikki Stancik:
Tie for 1st Place, Parliamentary Debate

Anna Phan and Manna Trevino:
Tie for 1st Place, Parliamentary Debate
(These two teams closed out the final round!)

Rohan Gupta and Travis Johnson:
Semifinalists, Parliamentary Debate (conceding to Phan/Trevino in a closeout of their semifinal round)

Debate speaker awards:
1st Nikki Stancik
5th Rija Naqvi
8th Anna Phan
9th Rohan Gupta
10th Travis Johnson

Overall, Rice won 18 separate debates.

Please join us in congratulating these academic competitors! This concludes competition for the Fall semester. The team will resume competing in January 2025.

Rice Speech and Debate is housed in the School of Humanities and is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate.

Rice Speech and Debate Celebrates Another Year of Excellence

After a year of hard work, rhetorical excellence, and tremendous success, Rice Speech and Debate closed out its year with one last tournament and the team banquet featuring its own internal awards. Results are listed below.

American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, April 5-8
Rice qualified multiple events for this prestigious tournament. Kevin Barry reached Quarterfinals in Communication Analysis, making him one of the top 24 speakers in the nation in this challenging event. Congratulations, Kevin!


Kevin Barry

Jarvis Sam (’13) was awarded the 2024 NST Distinguished Alumni Award. This award recognizes significant presence or achievement in the arts or entertainment, achievements or contributions to the advancement of a field of study, significant writing as evidenced by media or awards, and significant achievement as a global citizen. Jarvis was the national champion in Communication Analysis in 2013. To read more about Jarvis’ amazing career so far see https://www.rainbowdisruption.com/about

Internal Team Awards
On April 23rd, the team celebrated the end of the year with internal awards at the annual banquet. Most of these awards have a long history and recognize various kinds of excellence over the course of the year. Below are this year’s winners.

Lifetime Membership Award: Max Renteria
Speaker of the Year-Speech: Kevin Barry
Speaker of the Year-Debate: Max Renteria
Most Improved Speech Competitor: Kevin Barry
Most Improved Debater: Nikki Stancik
Newcomer of the Year-Speech: Daijah Wilson
Newcomer of the Year-Debate: Rohan Gupta
Team Player-Speech: Chloe Pesqueira
Team Player-Debate: Kyle Sanderfer
Dan Henning Award: Given in memory of Dan Henning, this award recognizes competitors who excel in both speech and debate. This year’s winner is Pranav Nagajothi.

J. Newton Rayzor Prize in Forensics
This is the second year of the J. Newton Rayzor Prize for Forensics, an endowed cash prize for recognizing demonstrated excellence and outstanding contributions to forensics at Rice. The award memorializes J. Newton Rayzor and his achievements in forensics during Rice’s formative years. One prize is awarded in Speech and one in Debate each year.

Manna Trevino is the winner in Debate for 2023-24. Manna started her collegiate debate career during the challenging era of virtual competition and quickly established herself as a very hard worker focused on growth as a competitor. Manna has become a very successful debater, regularly appearing in elimination rounds. She is known around the nation for her unique and intelligent approach to arguments, especially in scientific areas. Manna does all of this while also meeting the demanding workload of being a Biosciences major. Manna represents the best of what it means to be an academic competitor for Rice.

Maya Adhikari is the winner in Speech for 2023-24. Maya appears regularly in final rounds in multiple events, often bringing home the first-place award. She is known nationally for using her speech events as platforms for advocacy. Maya has served as a district representative to the National Speech Tournament as well, representing her fellow students at other schools with distinction. Majoring in Political Science and English, Maya’s investment in the relationship between language and power brings unique strengths to her rhetorical efforts.

Goodbye to A Senior
Like the rest of his class, Max Renteria started Rice with virtual classes, lockdown measures, and everything that went with the COVID-19 pandemic. Max had the additional challenge of learning to compete in debate at the collegiate level under these conditions. In fact, the first half of his career (two years) occurred in completely virtual conditions. He capped off this half by winning the NPDA national championship with Jacob Tate (’22). The second half of his career featured normal competition, with the challenges of travel and in-person competition. Max finished this period by again reaching the final round at NPDA with Arjun Surya (’26) and finishing second in the nation, making him one of only three Rice competitors and one of the very few people to have been in two final rounds of NPDA. Max Renteria is singular in the history of the team. We will miss him but look forward to his return to future events as an esteemed alumnus. Good Luck, Max!

Please join us in congratulating these academic competitors! This concludes competition for the year. The team will next compete in the Fall 2024 semester.

Rice Speech and Debate is housed in the School of Humanities and is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate.

Full PR later, but congratulations to Kevin Barry for reaching quarterfinals in Communication Analysis at the NST and congratulation to alumnus Jarvis Sam ('13), recipient of the 2024 AFA-NST Distinguished Alumni Award!

If you are following this page you know how important funding is to speech and debate programs. If you would like to donate today for the 24 Hour Challenge, head to the link below and select “other (Please notify in special instructions)” in the drop down menu for designation. The next page will then allow you to specify in the field that you would like your gift to benefit the George R. Brown Forensics Society (Speech and Debate Team). If you are following this page you know how important funding is to speech and debate programs. Every bit helps!

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https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/rices-national-champion-speech-and-debate-team-racks-more-60-awards-semester?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--C5T4F-2T20HyvvAPaUEw6wRGtOsrkFpkIKJZ4nIyQ4tfvVjQ58mTYLmnWwZRo2SRcVOecWsVHN3oDVqQ9gEIvhxuX9w&_hsmi=301745615&utm_content=301745615&utm_source=hs_email

Rice’s national champion Speech and Debate team racks up more than 60 awards this semester March marked a busy and successful month for Rice Speech and Debate, which clinched the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) National Championship Sweepstakes and achieved an unprecedented feat at the International Forensics Association (IFA) in Dublin, Ireland.

Rice Speech and Debate Wins Sweepstakes National Championship and Places High in International Competition, bringing home 62 awards so far this semester!

In the last two weeks, Rice Speech and Debate has won the NPDA National Championship Sweepstakes and made an unprecedented showing at the International Forensics Association in Dublin, Ireland. These incredible achievements show the hard work and dedication of these undergraduate academic competitors. So far this semester, Rice has brought home 62 awards.

Sharpening their advocacy skills this semester, Rice’s competitors have appeared at regional, national, and international tournaments, competing and learning along with college and university students from all levels of higher education. This press release will first cover two recent significant tournaments and then the rest of the spring tournaments so far in chronological order.

National Parliamentary Debate Association National Championship Tournament, March 15-18, Hosted by University of Utah

Overall Tournament Sweepstakes: 1st Place National Champions

Open Varsity Division Season Sweepstakes: 1st Place National Champions

Overall Season Sweepstakes: 5th Place

Senior Max Renteria and Sophomore Arjun Surya are runner-up national champions, taking 2nd place after an outstanding final-round debate against the University of California, Berkeley!

This was Renteria’s second appearance in the final round, placing him among a very small number of debaters who have reached finals twice in their careers. He won the national championship in 2022 with Jacob Tate. For Surya, this appearance is an incredible feat for a sophomore, foreshadowing additional success in the coming years!

Kyle Sanderfer and William Wang: Quarterfinalists
Anna Phan and Rohan Gupta: Octafinalists
Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi: Octafinalists

Individual Speaker Awards:
Max Renteria 6th
Arjun Surya 8th
William Wang 20th

Rice won 31 separate debates.

Four out of five Rice teams reached elimination rounds, with the remaining team of Manna Trevino and Kelly Yang taking the “next out” position, coming closer than any other remaining team to making the cut.

Max Renteria was selected for the NPDA All-American Squad, recognizing his commitment to community service, academic excellence, and competitive success.

Shannon LaBove was awarded the Brent Northup Distinguished Service Award for more than two decades of service to the debate community. She is only the third recipient of this award.

This finish marks the team’s second Sweepstakes NPDA National Championship, its fifth straight year with a top-four finish, and its fourth appearance in a debate national final round in the last six years!

International Forensics Association, March 11-12, Dublin, Ireland

Three students represented Rice at this global event for the first time. This tournament featured competitors from many nations and had an unusually difficult standard for reaching elimination rounds. All three students represented Rice with distinction.

Junior Pranav Nagajothi finished 5th Place in Varsity Extemporaneous Speaking and was a Double-Octafinalist in Varsity International Parliamentary Debate!

Below this point, the remaining tournaments so far this semester are listed in chronological order.

Mound High Swing Co-hosted by McKendree University and University of Texas at Tyler in Lebanon, IL, January 6-9.

Rice’s competitors returned early from Winter Break to represent Rice at this important two-tournament event. The tournament name references the Cahokia Mounds, the remains of the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico. The site is located very near the host campus.

First tournament
Max Renteria and Arjun Surya: Semifinalists, Varsity Debate
Nikki Stancik and Kyle Sanderfer: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate
Manna Trevino and Kelly Yang: Octafinalists, Varsity Debate

Second tournament
Max Renteria and Arjun Surya: Semifinalists, Varsity Debate
Nikki Stancik and Kyle Sanderfer: Semifinalists, Varsity Debate
Manna Trevino and Kelly Yang: Octafinalists, Varsity Debate

Individual Speaker Awards (calculated at this event by combining the two tournaments):
Kyle Sanderfer: 3rd
Nikki Stancik: 7th
Arjun Surya: 8th

Rice won 24 separate debates at this event.

In addition, two teams were announced at Mound High as first-round bids to the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence, placing them in the top 8 teams in the nation as of January. These teams are Max Renteria/Arjun Surya and Nikki Stancik/Rija Naqvi. Unfortunately, the tournament is scheduled during Rice’s finals period so they will be unable to attend. The team looks forward to attending the NPTE next year.

Rice currently has two teams ranked in the top ten and five in the top twenty on the NPTE rankings. The rankings are based on win/loss records.

3x3 Winter Blast Virtual Tournament
Kevin Barry:
2nd Communication Analysis
5th Persuasive Speaking

Maya Adhikari:
2nd Extemporaneous Speaking

Charlotte Motor Speedway hosted by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, January 27-28

4th Place Overall Sweepstakes

Shay Olaifa:
1st Programmed Oral Interpretation
4th After Dinner Speaking
4th Prose Interpretation

Daijah Wilson:
1st Poetry Interpretation
4th Programmed Oral Interpretation

Maya Adhikari:
5th Extemporaneous Speaking
3rd Informative Speaking

Texas Intercollegiate Forensic Association, Hosted by Texas State University at San Marcos, February 2-4
Pranav Nagajothi:
3rd Impromptu Speaking

Kevin Barry:
2nd Informative Speaking
5th Communication Analysis

San Diego State University, February 3-4

Anna Phan and Rohan Gupta: Semifinalists, Varsity Debate
Max Renteria and Arjun Surya: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate
Nikki Stancik and Rija Naqvi: Quarterfinalists, Varsity Debate

Individual Speaker Awards:
Max Renteria: 2nd
Nikki Stancik: 4th
Anna Phan: 7th
Rohan Gupta: 8th
Kyle Sanderfer: 9th

Rice won 10 separate debates at this event.

Speech on the Beach Swing, Hosted by Del Mar College and Lone Star College North Harris, Corpus Christi, TX, February 9-11

First tournament
Daijah Wilson:
1st Programmed Oral Interpretation

Maya Adhikari:
6th Extemporaneous Speaking

Chloe Pesqueira:
6th Impromptu Speaking

Second Tournament
4th Place Overall Sweepstakes

Daijah Wilson:
2nd Programmed Oral Interpretation

Maya Adhikari:
3rd Extemporaneous Speaking

Chloe Pesqueira:
6th Impromptu Speaking
3rd Informative Speaking

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, February 17
Chloe Pesqueira
5th Informative Speaking

AFA-NST District III Qualifier Tournament, Tyler JC, Tyler, TX, March 2
Kevin Barry:
1st After Dinner Speaking
1st Communication Analysis

Maya Adhikari:
1st Persuasive Speaking
3rd After Dinner Speaking

Pranav Nagajothi:
1st Impromptu Speaking

Chloe Pesqueira:
1st Informative Speaking
2nd Impromptu Speaking
2nd Persuasive Speaking

Shay Olaifa:
3rd Programmed Oral Interpretation

Please join us in congratulating these academic competitors! The team will next compete at the American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament, hosted by the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire.

Rice Speech and Debate is coached by David Worth and Shannon LaBove. For more information, please visit humanities.rice.edu/speech-and-debate.

Details later, but Rice Speech and Debate are the 2024 National Parliamantary Debate Association Tournament and Varsity Season Sweepstakes National Champions and Max Renteria and Arjun Surya are the Runner-up National Champions of the tournament bracket!