The Student Congress opening meeting will be held in SSS 114 at 8:00 A.M. on Saturday. All judges and competitors should attend.

My dear Coaches –

It’s with no small amount of bittersweet regret that I’m letting everyone know that I’m not going to be at the helm of the Yale Invitational this year. I’d reached the point with my career and family life that my role at the tournament was becoming a hindrance, not a help, to a great event which I have had the privilege to run and help build in conjunction with the Yale Debate Association for the last twelve years now.

This has been in the works for many weeks now, and we’ve gotten everything in place to enable the tournament to carry on just fine without me. It’s an indicator of how dense the rest of my life has been that the major delay to me sending this note is having the time to write it properly. If I were trying to run the tournament right now it would be a disaster for all involved. As it is, I hesistated too long; I liked the YDA and the tournament too much to want to leave. But I came to realize that I would eventually have to walk away from a YDA team I liked, and a tournament that has been a true labor of love, because I never worked with a YDA team I disliked.

The tournament will remain in good hands. Joe Vaughan of Scarsdale will take over speech tab. Beth Eskin of Timber Creek and Robert Sheard of Durham Academy are taking the wheel in Public Forum Debate. Most of the rest of the team of Yale tabbers are going to be returning to their same roles.

We restructured the leadership of the YDA a few years ago to bring more of the institutional memory and experience within the YDA itself; and it has definitely born fruit. As a result, over the last few years I’ve whittled down my own role to primarily being that of tournament prep and advice beforehand, and played rather little role during the tournament itself (by design). I’ve continued to give them that same advice, and have checked over things to make sure all the ducks are in a row. This installment of the Yale Invitational is going to run on rails as you’ve come to expect.

One of the benefits and risks of being in charge of an effort like this is that you get a lot of credit, and a lot of blame, for how things go. I admit I believe Yale is one of the finest, if not the finest, all-events major tournaments in the forensics season. Thus I’ve gotten a lot of credit over the years, credit that mostly derives from the efforts of others, others who will continue to make the Yale Invitational one of the highlights of the forensics season. Thank you all for making the tournament great, as I have every faith it will continue to be.

I may come down on Sunday of the tournament for a visit; if I do I’ll say hi to you all then.

Cheers,
-Chris Palmer
Tab director emeritus