Edifying performances, orations fill Knox Center

Having students' voices heard was the main focus during the Speech, Drama & Video Night hosted by the speech, music and media and fine arts departments Nov. 17 in the Knox Center.

The speech and debate team delivered speeches to engage audience members.

After interim speech director Rachel Dwiggins-Beeler gave her introduction, the show began with speech and debate team member Arturo Leon giving an informative speech about collecting water. The point of the speech was to inform the audience about different ways to collect water.

"I wanted the audience to learn different methods of collecting water that do not involve harsh chemicals or confusing methods," Leon said.

Then political science major Aerial Silva did an oral interpretation of literature on bullying.

She talked about three types of bullying: verbal, physical and cyber. During her speech, she acted out several impressions from movies about bullying.

The last performance was a debate about the economy and after hearing both sides, the audience voted on the winning team.

Audience members had to knock on the chairs if they liked what the speaker was talking about, or use finger gestures and say shame if the crowd did not like what the speaker was saying.

The speech department worked hard toward putting the event together.

Speech and debate team coach Marie Arcidiacono said the work was all worth it at the end to see her team shine.

Arcidiacono was very pleased with her speech team and was proud of what they accomplished at the event.

"They all did awesome. I was blown away by every performance and I'm proud of how much they practiced," Arcidiacono said.

Dwiggins-Beeler said she was also proud of the speech team and glad the team could show off their talent.

The next speech event is the Intramural Speech Tournament and will held in the LA Building on Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m. All students can participate in the event and no speaking experience is necessary.