theciddlauncheseasterneuropeandebatetours.docVIP

The CIDD Launches Eastern European Debate Tours By Allan D. Louden Wake Forest University The International Discussion and Debate (CIDD) in conjunction with IDEA has inaugurated a new series of debate tours in Eastern Europe. The CIDD is an educational committee of the National Communication Association (NCA), a professional organization of communication educators. In June of 2000 the series was initiated in the Baltic States. Two competitively selected American students, Gabrielle Prisco, University of Alabama and Kelly Steele, University of Michigan, were accompanied by tour planner Allan Louden from Wake Forest University. For a month the group worked with students and teachers in workshops in Daugavpils, Liepaja, and Riga, Lativa; Druskininkai; Lithuania; and Tallinn, Estonia. The tour concluded in Tartu, Estonia with an international debate tournament. IDEA’s Noel Selegzi has been instrumental in contacts and support in developing the CIDD tours. The program is designed to be a series of tours with a US team visiting Eastern European countries and in alternating years hosting reciprocal tours to the US. The first US tour took place March2001 with a delegation composed of students from the three Baltic nations. The CIDD is currently arranging a 2002 summer tour that tentatively includes stops in Hungary, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The tour is scheduled for June (More details below). The CIDD has sponsored international student debate exchanges since 1922. The first thirty years of the exchanges featured debaters from Oxford and Cambridge; the biennial England/US exchange continues to present day with students selected throughout Great Britain. In 1952, the program was expanded to include students from Australia and New Zealand. Since that time programs were added with India, Pakistan, and the Philippines and the Soviet Union. Some of the tours have not survived but others remain vigorous. Since 1969 the CIDD has sponsored a biannual swap bet