in various areas of the University: ‘If you see someone who seems to be particularly articulate and comfortable speaking in front of a class, let me know.’ Very few of the forensics competitors were speech or communication majors. I was a political science major.” Now Heydlauff is vice president of corporate communications
for American Energy and Power, the latest in a series of high-level positions he’s held in the field. “Without a doubt, my Eastern training is one of the keys to my professional success,” he says. “We live in a world of finite resources and competing demands. In that sense, life is just one big negotiation, and the individual that can make the most compelling case tends to be the one who succeeds.”
previously been a program priority. Romerhausen’s pedigree is peerless: he started competing in sixth grade in Evansville, Ind., one of those forensics hotbeds, and was a world champion in impromptu speaking at Western Kentucky before coming to Eastern for his master’s degree. “While maybe it wasn’t that cool in other schools, at one
N
time in my high school there were 90 people going to forensics tournaments,” he says. “That’s a lot of people doing what might be considered kind of nerdy in some places.” There’s room for more, in his view. “There are a lot of really talented people out there, who have
a voice and something to say and could do it well, and forensics would be an outlet for them,” he says, “but they go through college and maybe learn about it in their senior year. I would like for people to have the same opportunity I did. That’s the educator in me, my assistant professor hat. As director of forensics, I just hope everyone knows about EMU’s legacy of saying things and saying them well, and the future looks bright with the students we have.”
her first year at Eastern after transferring from Oakland Community College, Green and four fellow “rookies” recently gave Eastern its first national novice tournament championship since the event began in 1983. Five of the six, including Green, won individual titles, and the top three pentathlon speakers were all Eagles. Learning the culture came as quickly to her as success. “You
K
always want to win, obviously, but at the end of the day it’s not about winning,” she says. “It’s about spreading the message about an important issue and connecting with people.”
“F
orensics celebrates the centrality of communication to the human condition,” says Quiel. “We are, at our
essence, wordlings learning language.” 3
ayla Green, a junior from Farmington Hills, is one of those students, and she’s already helped shape the tradition. In
ick Romerhausen took over from Quiel in 2012, allowing Quiel to build a debate component that had not
The Tradition Continues The Eastern Michigan forensics team’s tradition of
excellence is alive and well, and the future looks bright. Those are the take-home points from the Eagles’ efforts
as hosts of the National Forensic Association Collegiate Tournament in April, when about 1,000 students from 86 teams competed for four days on campus. Senior Patrick Seick of Middletown, Ohio, capped his
Eastern career with two individual championships, and the team’s fifth-place finish, behind first-place Western Kentucky, preserved its record of being in the top 10 every year since the tournament’s inception in 1971. Seick finished first out of 140 contestants in after-dinner speaking, and beat out 199 competitors in the impromptu speaking event. Those finishes helped boost him to third place in the overall pentathlon event. Eastern also earned the association’s Founder’s Trophy,
given to programs for sustained success. Eastern has won the award five times, tops in the country. The award considers all points accumulated each year and once a team wins the trophy, its point total returns to zero. Just a few weeks earlier, the Eagles won the Novice
National Forensic Tournament for the first time in history, capturing six individual championships in the process. The novice tournament is for students in their first year of collegiate forensic competition. “That’s a really big accomplishment for us,” says Director of Forensics Nick Romerhausen. “It sure bodes well for the future.”
Forensics photos courtesy of EMU Communication, Media & Theatre Arts Department
Eastern | SPRING 2014 21
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