Reminders and Logistics for Tomorrow's DePaul Mid-Season Classic

This weekend’s DePaul Mid-Season Classic is at the DePaul Lincoln Park Campus (right by the Fullerton CTA Red Line Stop).

The address for the center of the tournament, the Schmitt Academic Center, is 2320 N. Kenmore Avenue. The judge table will be on the first floor, where you can register.

All coaches should check the T3 Schedule

A few reminders and announcements:

1. Morning changes and registration: Please confirm with students and judges and note that all changes should be called/texted in to David at 8 4 7 -9 5 1- 9 6 6 2 as soon as you know of them (before you get on the bus and leave Friday and Saturday).

Friday morning, registration begins at 8:30 am and the opening assembly begins at 9:30 am, with pairings released not long after. Please call/text any changes and check in by 9:10 am at the latest on Friday or your team will be left off the pairing and forfeited.

On Saturday morning, check-in begins at 7:45 am but do not plan to arrive at 8:15 am since Round 6 starts exactly at 8:30 am. Pairings will be available at 8:10 am and debates must START at 8:30 am, with a forfeit time of 8:45 am which will be enforced. Call/text David with any changes at 8 4 7 -9 5 1- 9 6 6 2 and check in by 7:50 am at the latest on Saturday or your team will be left off the pairing and forfeited.

Also note that breakfast is not provided on Saturday morning – teams should plan to have students eat before arriving for morning check-on Saturday morning.

2. Forfeit policy: Our tournaments run on-time. We respect your time and value the contribution you make to the experience of students from your school and all the others that are a part of the league. It is a professional expectation that coaches ensure their students and judges arrive on time and are ready to debate at scheduled times. Those who are late for debates or have unannounced changes are asking for exceptions that would delay the tournament for everyone else’s students, which we can’t allow. Forfeits will occur 15 minutes after the start of each announced round. For Round 1 on Friday, 10:15 am. For Round 5 on Saturday morning, 8:45 am is the forfeit time. Losing your first debate of the day due to tardiness is not the way to go.

3. Meals:

For the DePaul Mid-Season Classic, there will be catered pizza lunches on both Friday and Saturday.

Schools are responsible for their own breakfast on Friday and dinner on Saturday.

We will provide each school a $6/person stipend to cover dinner on Friday ($5/person) and breakfast on Saturday ($1/person) – this will be made out in the form of a check to the head coach traveling with the team on Friday. We will provide meal money to cover each competing student, each coach and judge traveling with a school, and a few (no more than 5) observers per school, within reason. A coach from each school should prepare to have money available to purchase these meals on Friday and Saturday and use the checks they receive on-site Friday as an allowance to cover $6/person toward purchasing those meals – there will not be time to cash these checks on-site at a nearby bank.
Here is a link to a map of fast food restaurants near the DePaul Lincoln Park Campus.

4. Map of Campus Buildings: Please see this annotated map of the buildings we’ll be using this weekend (marked with a black border) at DePaul:

Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of printed-out copies of this map at DePaul too!

We are using only a few buildings where classroom debates will be held:

• Schmitt Academic Center (aka SAC, central location of tournament), 2320 N. Kenmore
  
• Levan Center (connected by hallways through SAC), 2322 N. Kenmore

  

• O’Connell Hall (connected by hallways through SAC), 1036 W. Belden

  

• Arts and Letters Hall (directly across Kenmore Ave. from SAC), 2315 N. Kenmore
  
• Byrne Hall (block south of SAC on Kenmore Ave.), 2219 N. Kenmore

  

• 990 W. Fullerton (a couple of blocks Northeast from the SAC, building says ‘Eugene Dietzen Co.’ on it)
  

If students have a locked classroom or missing judge/team in your debate, please do not leave your assigned building – tell your judge or a coach and they will inform us. Judges/coaches with locked classrooms may also call/text David at 8 4 7 -9 5 1- 9 6 6 2.

5. Parking: There are two visitor lots you may use to park in: both offer $8 parking if you validate your ticket in the self-validation machine found in the Schmitt Academic Center (SAC):

• 2330 N. Clifton (between Fullerton and Belden)

  

• 2332 N. Sheffield (between Fullerton and Belden)

  

These are marked with an orange border in the map above – avoid any of the lots marked with a Red X. For any additional parking questions, you may call 773-325-7275.

6. Travel plans: We know there’s a small chance of rain or snow this weekend and a stronger chance of Friday morning traffic, but everyone’s used to Chicago winters by now and weather will NOT be an excuse or a reason not to be forfeited. Please check/confirm with your judges that they are arriving on time and leave extra time for your vehicle or for the bus.

7. College access programming: During lunch on Friday, students will hear a presentation from DePaul University’s Admissions Office about preparing for success at a school like DePaul, which will be introduced by DePaul Communications Instructor Beth Zoufal. This should be a great opportunity for upperclassmen particularly to hear about admissions and scholarship opportunities, but also may be of interest to younger students formulating their plans for higher education. All students must give their full attention and must properly dispose of all food from lunch, no cans or plates should be left in the Auditorium.

8. Saturday departure and elimination judging: All schools will stay until departure at 1:45 pm following awards on Saturday – no school leaves before first departure at our tournaments and your students are certainly in contention for awards and don’t want to miss the excitement of the awards ceremony.

All schools must provide judges obligated to stay THROUGH OCTOFINALS until 3:45 pm.

Schools should plan to have one judge/coach available to stay with students in the event they debate in elimination rounds and arrange alternate transportation other than the bus that leaves at first departure. One judge from each school is obligated a round past its elimination, meaning each school should be ready to have one judge called on to stay and judge quarterfinals. Teams in quarterfinals are obligated to have one judge in semifinals and teams in semifinals are obligated to have one judge in finals.

9. Respect the facilities: It is very important that we continue to respect the gracious and generous hosts at DePaul University who have made it possible to have a tournament on a beautiful college campus for the Mid-Season Classic. A few specific rules:

*Students and judges may not re-arrange or touch items in rooms – make sure all furniture is back where it was at the end of your debates.

*Students are NOT to enter or congregate in the DePaul Student Center (marked with a red X on the map) – the center of the tournament is the SCHMITT ACADEMIC Center (2320 N. Kenmore, marked with a yellow star on map). All students who are done with debates early should return to the pit of the SAC until their next pairing is released.

*No food is allowed outside the pit of the SAC, with the lone exception of Friday’s lunch college admissions presentation in the SAC auditorium.

*Please do not sit on the tables in the SAC. We know seating is scarce, but anyone who sits on tables will be responsible for paying for the damage to DePaul property and asked to leave the tournament.

*Students who are observing or have a bye may watch a debate with their coach or work quietly in the pit of the Schmitt Academic Center (SAC). Coaches are responsible for directing their students to either a debate round or to organized preparation for an upcoming debate. No students are allowed to roam the campus unsupervised or use areas of campus buildings they are not scheduled to be in – any students who pose a supervision or conduct problem will be asked to call a parent or guardian and leave the tournament immediately.

We look forward to a great tournament in a great setting and to seeing the best that Conference “A” and “AA” have to offer.