The Debate Forensics Interpretation team attended the Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament on March 23-27 at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon.  At this GSC's first national tournament since affiliating with Pi Kappa Delta, the nation's largest honorary society for intercollegiate speech and debate, the DFI club won the following honors:

1st Place Superior Award, Cross Examination Debate Association Policy Debate--Denzil Gelly

Finalist, CEDA Policy debate--Denzil Gelly (Gelly debated with a swing partner)

Excellent Award, International Public Debate Association Debate--William Rigdon.

Rigdon's award was noteworthy in that he finished 14th among 84 contestants in his division, and had the 8th highest number of speaker points at nationals.

John Hernandez, Nikeya Bell, and Janice McKay also attended this event, at which GSC also received its Pi Kappa Delta Charter as the Georgia Alpha chapter.  A total of 85 schools attended this tournament, which involved 20 community colleges and 65 four year institutions.

Tom Preston, a Professor of CMSJ, accompanied the team to this event and performed a program dedicated to immigrants in an Alumni Interpretation showcase.  With a fifth straight year of national tournament competition and the 2010-2011 year at a close, the GSC DFI club thanks the following faculty and alumni for their help with both traveling to tournaments as judges and/or coaching debate and speech leading up to PKD nationals: Brian Kline (Assistant Professor of CMSJ), and alumni Caitlin O'Dell, Destiny Moore, Jarvis Johnson, Alejandro Ramirez, Amon Kirk, and Cameron McGinty.  Dr. Cheryl Gooch and Dr. Cara Ray, as well as the Student Life Funding Committee, are also thanked for helping to fund two national tournaments this academic year--the International Academy of Dispute Resolution's National Mediation Tournament at Drake University in Des Moines, IA, where GSC finished in the "Final Four", and the PKD nationals.