The Roosevelt Institution

Challenge League Tournament Model

GOALS AND MISSION

The Roosevelt Challenge Tournaments were conceived as a new way of (1) encouraging students to invent creative solutions to pressing policy challenges, (2) to hone those ideas into well-supported proposals, and (3) to promote them to the public and policymakers.

These three goals guide everything that goes into the Challenge Tournaments. They are not, however, an end-all solution to all of the goals of the Roosevelt Institution – the Tournaments are merely one type of event in the constellation of chapter activities that achieve our broader mission.

In general, we are always balancing between being a professional think tank and a fun, exciting student organization. Often those two identities are mutually exclusive. We frequently find that being professional and scholarly gives us credibility with academics or policymakers but loses us the appreciation of most students. Likewise, being dynamic and cool raises our membership rosters and engages our peers but may turn off serious politicos or at least fail to attract their serious attention. We must constantly tack from one side to the other, always striving to hit the perfect chord with both.

The Roosevelt Challenge Tournaments seek to hit that chord though they will err on the side of catering to students rather than professional adults. We expect to convince adults to attend the Tournaments one by one but we want students to attend in droves. Thus, the model laid out here engages professionals mostly through directly requesting their individual participation in the event and engages students at a broad level through advertising, branding, and a format that caters to their tastes. Other events will cater more to adult community members with formats suited to them but the Challenge Tournaments are designed to attract students. Though Roosevelt is often a very insular community of political wonks, the Tournaments will present us with an effective way to both accomplish our organizational goals and engage more of our peers in important political dialogue.

The Competitive Format: One of the ways the Tournaments cater more to students is through a competitive format. Naturally, our goal with this is not to declare unconditional winners and losers but to help young political innovators showcase and polish their ideas through dialogue and comparison with their peers and experts. This intends to be the friendliest of friendly competitions. We realize that we all usually want the same political outcomes – it’s more a question of how should we get there.

It should be noted that we have very deliberately chosen to add competition to the general format of policy conferences. We recognized early one that one of the things that defines the most successful youth activities is competition. Examples are everywhere in activities like student elections, mock trial, debate teams, business plan competitions, and Model UN. Even sports offer a model for effectively using competition to motivate and engage; football games wouldn’t be half as exciting for either the players or the fans if no one was ever declared the winner.

Competition also has the convenient ability to separate items into a hierarchy of achievement. One of Roosevelt’s constant challenges is trying to identify the best ideas and most talented students from a pool of thousands of members. Through competitive forums, the best solutions to the Roosevelt Challenges and the students who craft them will rise to the top. This is impossible through traditional conferences or symposiums. We should again note that this is an unusual type of competition because we will be measuring success based on students’ abilities to craft and implement effective solutions to the Roosevelt Challenges. We have no intentions of turning this into a glorified version of high school debate or mock trial. Whereas those forums seek to train students in skills we are focused on the content of students’ work and the competition will reward participants accordingly.

Finally, openly competitive processes are highly effective at defining for participants the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts. While closed-door editing or review models are effective at picking more qualified candidates from the rest of the pack, they fail the test of transparency. Transparency is crucial to motivate even the losers to try again because then (1) they know how close they were or how far they have to go, (2) they know very clearly why they lost and by what criteria they were judged, and (3) they know for certain that the process was fair because they watched it unfold. And if we successfully build this into a full league with many tournaments each year, participants will also be afforded multiple chances at success thereby making losing less of a blow. More than anything, we hope that even the losers will have found the process fun.

EVENT OVERVIEW

Generally: The Roosevelt Challenge Tournaments will be single, full-day competitive policy tournaments hosted by chapters of the Roosevelt Institution and co-sponsored by Roosevelt National. They will begin early in the morning and finish either in the afternoon or over a gala dinner. They will consist of a morning opening ceremony followed by two preliminary rounds in which teams will present their solutions to the Roosevelt Challenges. Presentations will include a variety of mediums such as advanced written materials, live multi-media displays, and oral argumentation. In each round students will be judged by local experts including activists, scholars, political operatives, and especially elected officials.

The preliminary rounds will determine the finalists who will move on to the final round in the afternoon. This final ceremony will be creative and extravagantly produced such that it attracts a large viewing audience. With a final panel of top-level politicos, academics, and elected officials the presenters will again present their policy proposals, engage in dynamic and engaging dialogue about the issues, and make their final plea for why their idea should win. Then, perhaps with help from the audience , the judges will make their selection and announce a winner. This final round might also include a keynote address from a prominent speaker.

Schedule: The best day for the tournaments has yet to be determined . Originally a Saturday was deemed ideal so that student and adult participants alike were sure to have the day off. However, it is difficult sometimes to get adult participants to give up their weekends for a student project. This is especially true if they live in the suburbs and would not otherwise be in town. Political staffers in particular might prefer a work day. Thus, Friday is also an attractive option and certainly brings the advantage of allowing us to start earlier in the morning than we could on a Saturday. At this point we consider the two days’ pros and cons to be about the same and will likely try both.

The night before the Tournament will likely include a reception for the event participants, judges, organizers, and outside supporters and advisors. This should take place at the home of a local benefactor, or else at a restaurant, or else on campus in a nice venue. This event might also make an effective fundraiser.

Basic Schedule Outline:

Day 1

• 10:00 – 12:00 Conference Registration
• 12:00 – 1:15 Opening Ceremony (over lunch?)
• 1:30 – 3:00 First Conference Session (two concurrent sessions)
• 2:00 – 6:00 Tournament Registration
• 3:15 – 4:45 Second Conference Session (two concurrent sessions)
• 5:00 – 6:15 Closing Conference Plenary Session
• 7:30 – 9:30 Cocktail Party for conference presenters, tournament teams, event staff, and VIPs

• 8:00 – 9:15 New To Roosevelt Breakfast
• 9:30 – 10:30 Tournament Opening Ceremony
• 10:45 – 12:30 Round 1
• 12:45 – 1:45 Lunch
• 1:45 – 3:30 Round 2
• 3:45 – 5:30 Round 3
• 5:30 – 7:00 Dinner Break
• 6:30 – Finalists posted
• 7:00 – 8:30 Final Program & Awards

Topic: The subject of the conference will be either one of the Roosevelt Challenges or all three. If all three the program will need to be split amongst three tracks which will then come together in the final round.

Audience: The target audience for a Challenge Tournament is students. One of the goals of the Roosevelt Institution is to engage our entire generation in a conversation about our political future so we feel inspired to try and attract as many students to these events as possible. Thus, the Tournaments are designed to be more attractive to a student audience than, say, a professorial one. While we expect professors to attend, the Tournaments will in no way resemble your average gathering of academics. This is first and foremost a student forum.

Thus, all branding and promotions should target a student audience (this is part of why we’re hosting these on campuses rather than in city venues).

One outstanding question is whether a larger audience will be invited to the whole day or just the final ceremony. The final round will likely be the only truly exciting part of the day unless the audience happens to be highly interested in the given topic. Though in any case it might be hard to engage an audience for an entire day. It will depend how the event is structured and what kind of opportunity for audience participation will be included. There should certainly be a way to have people attend the full day like they would at a conference.

Participants: Participants will be organized into teams. Teams can consist of up to 5 people. Teams will be allowed to organize in any way they see fit and use their presentation time as they wish as well. As with all Roosevelt activities, anyone presenting must be a current student.

However, participants needn’t necessarily be an active part of a Roosevelt chapter. As always, we are seeking to engage all college students to help solve the Roosevelt Challenges and the tournaments should be seen as an opportunity to recruit new students to the cause. Many students will likely have some materials already prepared having done similar work for classes, theses, or in their work lives. We should actively seek out these outside individuals and encourage them to participate. Then, after the fact, we should try to keep them involved with the chapter. Chapter involvement will certainly give a leg up to participants but it shouldn’t be a requirement for entry. Again, active recruitment of non-Roosevelt members will be crucial to making these events a success.

Judges: Tournament judges will be selected by the hosting chapter based on:

• Their expertise in the field being addressed
• Their ability to effect change in that field

Most likely the judges will include:

• Elected officials (our primary target)
• Political Operatives (chiefs of staff, legislative aids, officials in non-elected agencies, leaders of non-profits)
• Media Professionals (reporters, columnists, anchors, producers, editors, etc.)
• Scholars (professors, think tank fellows, authors, etc.)

The judges will be given a specific rubric to follow (see “The Rubric”) but at some point they will nonetheless have to make simple judgment calls about which proposals they prefer. Public policy is not formulaic like a baseball game or chess tournament where the winner or loser is determined solely by the rules of engagement. Though we will provide a rubric to guide their thinking, at some point such subjective decisions will have to be made by subjective decision-makers.

Note: We will also form a small committee of “Rule Judges” made up of the hosting chapter president, the president of the Roosevelt Institution, and another event organizer. This group will be on hand to clear up any confusion over the rules or the program. Like in Jeopardy.

Entrance Fees: In the long term, the Roosevelt Challenge League and the Tournaments that compose it will likely charge an entrance fee for all participants much like sports and Model UN events charge a fee to cover the administrative costs of hosting a tournament. But it may not make sense to do this right away when no one has any idea what they’d be paying for.

One hybrid solution might be to charge an entrance fee but then waive it for 95% of participants. We could waive it for people who sign up early, for those who we are trying to recruit and can use that as a selling point (“I can get the fee waived for you if you’ll do it…”), and for people who just can’t pay it of course. This would set a good precedent of charging a fee for future events and might slightly increase the prestige of the event (people tend to respect things that cost money more than they respect things that are free).

TIMELINE

This timeline is very general. A much more detailed timeline is also available.

• 12 Weeks Out: A Roosevelt chapter and National agree to partner on the event and start the planning process. A probable date is selected. The chapter begins organizing a Tournament Committee. This committee must meet every week until the event even if only for a half an hour. Preferably these meetings will include conference calls with the National team. The host chapter and National set up a system for tracking participants, attendees, and judges.
• 11 Weeks Out: The Tournament Committee delineates their individual roles and begins work on each respective portion of the planning process (see Chapter and National Division of labor). The Committee and appropriate members of the National Staff do a conference call. The host chapter approaches other chapters in the region who might want to help put this on or at least participate.
• 10 Weeks Out: A probable venue is selected. The host chapter chooses the name of the event. The host chapter approaches their administration about helping to fund the event. Preliminary budgets are drawn up. National and to some degree the chapter start approaching outside organizations and donors for sponsorship. The host chapter begins approaching professors about directing their students’ work toward the Challenge Tournament or even shaping their curriculum to encourage the type of projects that could be presented at the Tournament. Host chapter starts seeking a host for the night-before reception.
• 8 Weeks Out: Promotions begin. Press releases are drafted, flyers are designed, deadlines are set for signing up to participate. A list of potential judges is drafted and the host chapter starts approaching them in coordination with the National Director of External Relations.
• 6 Weeks Out: Promotion really steps up. The host chapter approaches the student newspaper about running free ads or an article calling for participants. Host chapter members are recruiting in their classrooms and just one person at a time for both participants and attendees. Emails and Facebook ads are going out regularly promoting participation and attendance. Most judges have been approached if not confirmed. A keynote speaker is confirmed. The school agrees to sponsor the event in some capacity as does one outside organization or funder. Night-before reception host confirmed.
• 4 Weeks Out: Most of the final logistics are confirmed from food to printing to the space. From here on in it’s mostly about attendance and the participants. The final outline of the event agenda is finished with only details to add as the date draws near. Regional media are approached by students in person. Other student groups and classrooms are approached and agree to send their entire membership to the event as attendees at least. Area chapters are reminded to recruit participants and get their people to sign up.
• 3 Weeks Out: More promotions. More media work. More recruiting of judges to fill vacant slots. Judges are sent materials outlining their responsibilities.
• 2 Weeks Out: The final sprint. The official deadline for participant registration passes (though people will be undoubtedly added at the last minute). All printed materials besides nametags should be finished the weekend before the event. Participants are sent packets outlining the final details.
• The Week Of: The student newspaper agrees to print an advance article the day of the event. Other media outlets are confirmed to come. Final attendee recruitment is on high alert. All judges are re-confirmed and do a conference call or individual calls with a staff member to answer final questions. All participants are called to offer final instructions. All final materials are printed and the space is set up the night before. The night-before reception raises some money and puts everyone in an excited mood for the next day. The event goes splendidly.

CHAPTER AND NATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOR

Chapter Staff: As mentioned, the host chapter will be expected to form a committee around organizing this event. It is crucial that that committee meet regularly – preferably weekly for the 12 weeks prior to the event. Perhaps this group will simply be the existing leadership of the chapter. The members of this team can vary according to the chapter’s preferences but it should probably include 8-12 members and cover the following roles and responsibilities:

• Event Czar (to over see the entire event and work on things like raising money)
• Lodging/Travel Coordinator
• Materials Coordinator (all printed items and on-site set-up)
• Food Coordinator
• Participant Recruitment Coordinator (though this will need to be a group effort of course)
• Attendee and General Promotions Team (this should definitely be multiple people) -- Flyering, Ads, Media
• VIP Coordinator (to recruit and manage judges, keynotes, etc.)
• Volunteer Coordinator (to help staff the event)

In addition, the three Roosevelt Challenges each have a national coordinator. These three coordinators will help especially with recruiting speakers and judges depending on which of the three (or all three) the Tournament is focused on.

Host Chapter Responsibilities:

1. The Creative Program – For these first few Challenge Tournaments we will still be very much playing with our model. It is especially crucial at this juncture that the host chapter get very creative especially with how to make this an excellent spectator sport.
2. The Rubric – Likewise, the Rubric is still a complete experiment. The host chapter will be encouraged to help craft it such that it matches our goals of inventing, honing, and implementing effective policy proposals.
3. Logistics – Most of the logistical legwork will fall to the host chapter though National will try to do as much as is possible from remote locations. This includes designing some and printing all materials, food, lodging and travel, on-site set-up, etc.
4. Recruitment – Of participants, attendees, and some of the judges. This includes organizing most of the promotions that will drive recruitment as well as the follow-up to confirm participants, attendees, and judges. This is perhaps the most important responsibility of the bunch.
5. School Sponsorship – Though National will kick in money and we expect to acquire outside sponsorship, getting money from the host chapter’s school is crucial. How much each school can contribute will vary but ideally the administration will help by offering a free venue and possibly paying for the food. Or else a donation of $1000-$4000 would be excellent. Host chapters should be able to get many things donated by approaching local restaurants and businesses as well.

National Responsibilities:

1. Designing the Model – We have a good start on this model but of course we’ll need our pioneer host chapters to help revise it.
2. Coordination with other chapters – National will take responsibility for contacting other chapters in the area and bringing them to the table. Once a part of the team, however, the responsibility for including them and recruiting from their membership will be shared by the Tournament Committee.
3. Designing Materials – Any materials that aren’t specific to this particular tournament (i.e. materials that will be used at every Tournament) Roosevelt National will write and design. All printing will obviously be done nearby the host chapter.
4. Funding – National has acquired some money to help pay for this (though not a ton). We will certainly need to fundraise for each individual event and the host chapter will be involved in doing so. National expects to pay for about half of what each Tournament should cost.
5. VIP Recruitment – Judges, keynotes, advisors, donors, etc. Though the chapter will especially have to help with recruiting judges, National will work extensively to bolster judge recruitment. This will run mostly through the Challenge Coordinators and the National Director of External Relations.

BRANDING

Each event is going to need a brand. Recall that our primary target for mass promotions and branding is students since all the adults in attendance will be recruited individually – not through our PR campaign.

Each event of this type is called a Roosevelt Challenge Tournament and the aggregate of all such Tournaments is called the Roosevelt Challenge League. However, these are not necessarily good brands for a major event. Thus, a separate brand (perhaps specific to the issue being addressed if only focused on one Challenge) will be necessary.

Think of a few analogies:
The National Football League --> Football Games --> The Superbowl
Television --> TV Shows --> Desperate Housewives
The Roosevelt Challenge League --> Challenge Tournaments --> ______________?

Thus a particular title for each individual event must be selected though a chapter could certainly elect to simply use “The Roosevelt Challenge Tournament”. The title might be well off with a tag-line as well. Always keep in mind that this title needs to attract students primarily. We’re shooting for as wide appeal as possible.

A few suggested examples:

• Blueprints – a summit of vision and ideas
• The Rooseposium
• The Roosevelt Vision Summit – ideas for the next generation
• Absolute Policy (think responsibly)

One last thing to keep in mind – if the title is specific to the issue being addressed that might go a long way in attracting people interested in that issue. However, it shortens the lifespan of that name to this one year. If the title is more generic it won’t resonate with as many people most likely but it could be a brand the host chapter uses again and again. Going back to our football analogy – think about the benefit the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl have gotten from reusing their brands every year (or imagine how silly it would be for a TV show to change its title every season). Either way is totally fine but the host chapter should make that decision conscious of the future.

TOURNAMENT PROGRAM OUTLINE

Chapter Breakfast: The morning of the event it would be nice to cater a continental breakfast at the event just to students from Roosevelt chapters and to students interested in starting Roosevelt chapters. The goal would be to hook the new students into forming Roosevelt chapters by introducing them intimately to the rest of the organization. No real programming is needed here besides a quick welcome from the host chapter and a few words about how to start a new chapter.

Opening Ceremony: The morning program should include:

• Welcome from the host chapter – this should include a little information about the Roosevelt Institution as a whole.
• Role call of chapters present? It might be nice to recognize our partner chapters
• Overview of the day, the goal of the event, the rules, and of conduct
• Some kind of keynote? The most preferred time for a keynote speaker will be during the final round extravaganza but if two were available a second big name would always be nice to kick it off. If we can’t attract a big name an entertaining or inspirational speaker would suffice just to get the energy flowing for the day.

Attendance – Mostly just the participants and judges. Maybe some observing attendees if we can figure out how to draw them in. A big speaker would also attract an outside audience.

Round Structure: Here is a sample outline of each round. Timing during each team’s turn will be very tight. Going under time is always allowed but we will have zero tolerance for running over.

• 25 minutes: Team 1
  • 12 minutes: Presentations (structure and content is entirely the team’s to decide)
  • 5 minutes: Judges Q&A
  • 5 minutes: Audience Cross Examination (The judges will just call on people. Judges will not allow long statements disguised as questions.)
  • 3 minutes: Team Final Word (a final rebuttal organized as they see fit)
• 25 minutes: Team 2 (same structure)
• 25 minutes: Team 3 (same structure)
• 15 minutes: Judges Feedback -- Judges provide feedback for each team for as much time as is left in the round. This should be about 15 minutes since a 5 minute transition period is factored in between each team and each round is an hour and 45 minutes.

Each round should consist of relatively the same structure and programming. There are several reasons for this:

• Judges: Our judges are unlikely to be able to stay throughout the day. They are probably going to be able to come for a couple hours, judge one round, and then leave. If they can only come for one round then they need to be able to understand what’s going on solely from that one round. I.e. we can’t expect them to have knowledge from prior rounds that would need to inform their voting in later rounds.
• Expansion: Keeping each round identical means that we can much more easily franchise this model. Some schools may only be able to handle 2 rounds. Others might be able to do 3. Others still might want to do two days’ worth of programming and hold 5 or 6 rounds. If we have to come up with new programming every time we add a new round, we make it much more difficult to expand this program.
• Boringness: Though it might seem at first like repeating identical programming would not be interesting, it might very well be more interesting than the alternative. If we did different programming each round then some rounds would contain very interesting programming and others would contain only boring programming. By combining them in each round you get a mix of the boring and entertaining.
• Confusion: If you change up the round structure each time people are going to get endlessly confused. We can already guarantee confusion since this has never been tried before so we should avoid confusion wherever else possible.

Compromise – “Emphasis Points”: But there is a compromise to be found here . Though we should structure each round identically, we can certainly designate slight differences in the emphasis for the round. We could easily weight those sections of the Rubric differently for different rounds making each category the “core issue” for one round and less significant for the others. For instance, the first round could focus on Originality and Creativity, the second round could focus on Feasibility and Support and the third round could focus on Relevancy and Impact.

One way to do this would be to designate 20 “Emphasis Points” that would rotate between the top two or three categories of the Rubric. Those categories would be included each time on the Rubric but the Emphasis Points would be given just to one category at a time. See the Rubric section for more details about how this might work.

Judging: Each round will be judged by as many judges as possible but one judge will of course be the bare minimum. If at all possible, no judge should see the same team present twice and no two teams should twice present in the same room together. These judges will be of the highest caliber we can find as designated in earlier sections. Also helping to facilitate the round will be a Roosevelt staff member who will be primarily charged with timing speeches and helping to clarify rules.

Lunch

Final Round Extravaganza: This is still an area for development. Here’s what we know:

• We want it to be huge – As many people in attendance as possible.
• We want the final judges to be as high-ranking as possible – Preferably they will be actual elected officials who can help make these proposals happen. Part of the excitement will come from watching the political process really work as the elected officials get pitched on why these students’ ideas are so great.
• We want it to be exciting – Tons of people plus a cool, interesting, funny, entertaining format = exciting. We want to make rock stars out of our winners.
• We want it to actually accomplish something while still being entertaining – We’re not just going for laughs here. The substance comes first. But we need to balance this with keeping our audience.
• There are many ways to be entertaining – we don’t have to detract from the substance to have fun. Possibilities include asking questions in a strange way (think Comedy Central’s Distraction), designing the set to be something funny or cool like Jack Abramoff’s office, the set of The Matrix, or an 1800s chamber room. Each event could do something different.
• We want audience participation – This could manifest itself in many ways: simply asking questions, being encouraged to cheer or snap like the House of Commons, taking instant polls of the audience, etc. A people’s choice award might also do the trick. We should survey game shows and comedy shows for how to best do this.
• We need to name a winner and award prizes – See “Awards and Aftermath” in section 9 for more on this. But we need to design a process by which the final round judges come up with the winner and then award the other prizes.
• Possible order of programming:
  • Welcome back address from the host chapter (reviewing the day). Includes an introduction to the finalists and their final judges.
  • The Final Round – 50-ish minutes
    • Presentations
    • Q&A
    • Something weird and entertaining
    • Audience participation
    • Commentary from judges
  • Individual and Special Awards (while final round judges are marking their ballots and tallying points)
  • Announcement of the winner and mini awards ceremony (with information about the next steps for the winning idea and everyone who participated)
  • Final word and thanks from host chapter

THE RUBRIC

The written proposal should follow the submission guidelines for the 25 ideas publication. The written proposals will be due a week or ten days ahead of time and the Editorial Board will pass quick judgment on each proposal in time for the event itself. Teams will receive their written proposal scores when they arrive at the Tournament.

Background: What differentiates the Challenge Tournaments from mock trial, debate, or other such groups, is that the Challenge Tournament will judge students based on exactly the same criteria by which the real world judges real public policy. Thus, by creating a virtual version of the process an idea might go through to come to fruition, the Challenge Tournament will both hone that idea into an effective proposal and encourage the teams pushing the idea to do much of the same work they would need to actually enact it.

The bottleneck for this whole scheme is the Rubric. This document will be the cornerstone of each team’s efforts while building their proposal and each judge’s thoughts as he’s evaluating them. The goal is to make the Rubric reward participants for the characteristics or actions we deem virtuous. If this is properly done then the winners of the Tournament will indeed be the best team with the best idea.

Below is the draft Rubric. It considers that perfect would equal 100 points and each characteristic we value is worth some portion of that. The judge is charged with evaluating each team based on these criteria. He can give full, none, or partial credit in each category. It also includes a “personal evaluation” section for each presenter which does not factor into the team score.

The Rubric also includes 20 “Emphasis Points” as described under the Tournament Program Outline section above. These points will be allocated alternately to the three most important categories: Originality and Creativity, Relevancy and Impact, and Feasibility and Support. Thus, for each Emphasis Category’s designated round, that category will be worth 30 points making it the primary focus for the round.

Draft Rubric (__/100):
Overall question for judges: Which proposal best meets the Challenge?

Written Portion (__/15)

• 5 Points: Quality of research
• 5 Points: Persuasiveness and strength of argumentation
• 3 Points: Quality of writing/communication
• 2 Points: Creativity

Presentation Portion (__/85)

• 10 Points: Connecting the Dots – Does this flow well from beginning, middle, to end? Do the methods match the goals? Are there major holes in logic or execution?
• 10 Points: Research – Quality and depth of the research as communicated in the presentation.
• 10 Points: Presentation – Oral communication, visual presentation, persuasiveness, etc.
• 10 Points: Originality and Creativity – Does this already exist? Have many people already proposed this? Does this plan present a new way of approaching the problem?
• 10 Points: Relevancy and Impact – How well does this proposal meet the Challenge? How big is its impact?
• 10 Points: Feasibility and Support – Who has endorsed this proposal? What would it take to build political support for this? How likely is this to actually get implemented? What’s the strategy for success?
• 20 Points: Emphasis Points (Round 1 – Originality and Creativity; Round 2 – Relevancy and Impact; Round 3 – Feasibility and Support)
• 5 Points: Bonus Points (These can be for anything at all. The judge should indicate on line below what the bonus points are for. There is no requirement that these be allotted.)

Personal Evaluation (not cumulative and does not contribute to team score):

• 10 Points – Quality of oral communication
• 10 Points – Knowledge of the issue
• 10 Points – Entertainment and humor

AWARDS AND AFTERMATH

Since we plan to have the final extravaganza include the final round of competition, it only makes sense to also present awards at that time. As indicated previously, it would be easy for the final votes to be tallied while we present the individual and special awards.

Trophies: The physical awards themselves should be a standardized type of trophy that ideally evokes the Roosevelt heritage in some way. Perhaps we should consult the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute about possible trophies. These should be the same for each Challenge Tournament with different engravings indicating the host chapter.

Chapter Award: Each host chapter should be encouraged to award an award of its own choosing to the team of its choice. The award should evoke a value their school holds dear. So the Berkeley chapter might give the “Hippie Award” to the most idealistic, happy-go-lucky team. Or the University of Chicago chapter might give a “Mayor Daly Machine Politics Award” to the team most apt at moving their idea through the ranks. The chapter leadership will designate the award in advance of the event and the chapter president and Tournament Czar will be responsible for administering the award. This award should probably repeat every year to give the award value.

People’s Choice Award: If the final round includes more than two teams it might be cool to take a poll of the audience and award a “People’s Choice” award to the winner of the most applause. This might just be a good tactic to raise energy and kill time.

Individual Awards: In order to encourage individual efforts and improvement as well as teamwork, we will administer individual awards that will be scored by the judges about each participant individually. These will often go to presenters who do not even make it to the finals. E.g.

• The Bull Moose Award (for quality oral communication)
• The Hyde Park Award (for extensive knowledge of the issue)
• The Jon Stewart Award (for entertainment and humor)

Re-wards : The more complicated part of this is with what, tangibly, should we actually reward the winning teams? Naturally, the opportunity to present your idea in front of an elite panel of judges and a large audience is to some degree a reward in and of itself. But we don’t want these ideas to stop here. We want the projects to extend beyond this event and eventually get enacted into law. But how to do that? There are a few ideas we might want to consider:

• Publication in the Roosevelt Review – Obviously they couldn’t be published as actual article authors since there’s no guarantee they’ll even have submitted an article of the appropriate length. But we could make a back section of the Review contain two or three pages of an abstract from each team that wins (or even is the runner up) at a Challenge Tournament.
• Publication in the Internationalist – Same model as the Review. Just make it more of a guest column.
• An audience with a major policymaker – I’ll bet we could get Barack Obama or someone like him to promise the winner of a Challenge Tournament a 15 minute audience in which to make their presentation. They would have to schedule it later of course but I’ll bet major elected officials would be willing to donate small bits of time to hear from smart students in their districts. It wouldn’t even have to be the biggest of political celebrities – even the speaker of the state house or governor would make a sweet prize worth writing home about.
• Money for their chapter – We could make a direct grant from Roosevelt National ($500 or something) for their chapter. They could use it to throw an event promoting their idea or to further their research somehow. As with all chapter monies we could oversee it and make sure it was spent properly.

GLOSSARY

• Host Chapter: The chapter hosting the Tournament.
• Tournament Committee: The group of chapter members and national staff coordinating the Tournament logistics.
• Roosevelt Challenge Tournament: That’s what this document is about.
• Roosevelt Challenge League: The constellation of Roosevelt Challenge Tournaments hosted by chapters around the country.
• Challenge Coordinators: The three national staff members coordinating efforts around the Challenges. Each is focused on just one Challenge.
• The National Staff: The mix of paid, professional staff and unpaid, volunteer students who work primarily for Roosevelt National rather than a particular chapter. Though many are still current students, we tend to refer to them as staff and to chapter members as “students”.
• Students: This almost always refers to currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students. Frequently it’s also used synonymously to indicate a chapter’s membership.
• The Rubric: The guide by which the judges will judge participants and the participants will craft their proposals and presentations.
• Personal Evaluation: The part of a judging ballot where judges rate the individual members of each team for their skills in presenting, knowledge of the issues, and for humor.
• Tournament Czar: The member of the host chapter in charge of organizing the Challenge Tournament.
• Emphasis Points and Categories: In each round, one of the three most important categories of the Rubric will be designated as the Emphasis Category for the round. This will allocate an additional 20 “Emphasis Points” to that category making it worth 30 points and therefore the highest-weighted issue in the round. The three Emphasis Categories are Originality and Creativity, Relevancy and Impact, and Feasibility and Support.