Parker Merrill Speech Competition

April 20, 2017, 7:30pm – Robison Hall, MCA

1st place award: $500

2nd place awards: $250


Check for more information here. Meanwhile, here’s the link to a Middlebury Magazine feature about last year’s competition.


The Parker Merrill Speech Competition 2016

This year’s topic: “True North: A Principle to Guide Us Through Troubled Times”

In 6 minutes or less – and without notes or a podium – convince us of a principle close to your heart that should guide our actions.

Round 1: Preliminaries

  • April 10, 7:30PM – Axinn 219
  • April 11, 7:30PM – Axinn 100

In a private audition, give a 2-3 minute preview of the speech you propose to deliver. If necessary, feel free to use a single note card, but no A/V aids, please. A panel of Oratory Now coaches will select twelve semifinalists.

(Optional Prep Session available, April 10, 4PM, Axinn 220.)

Round 2: Semifinals

April 14, 7:30PM – Axinn Center Abernethy Room

Without notes, deliver your 2-3 minute preview to a live audience. In preparation, semi-finalists will rehearse with an Oratory Now coach. A panel of faculty judges (Professors Jane Chaplin, Nathaniel Nesmith, and Larry Yarbrough) will select six finalists.

In the run up to the championship, former Governor James Douglas will serve as a scriptwriting consultant to the finalists.

Round 3: Championship

April 29, 7:30PM – Dana Auditorium

Deliver your 5-6 minute speech to a live audience. A panel of alumni guest judges* will award the Parker Merrill speech prizes — one 1st place award ($500) and two 2nd place awards ($250). A video of your speech, suitable for uploading to the web, will be made available to you.

*The judges for our Championship can now be announced. They are:

Cloe Shasha ’11, co-founder of TEDxMiddlebury, and now Content and Program Producer for TED. The TED.

Dena Simmons ’05, Director of Implementation at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. A frequent guest speaker, Ms. Simmons has just recorded a TEDTalk.

Jay Heinrichs ’77, author of the bestselling “Thank You For Arguing,” and professional consultant for TED speakers. “Cross Cicero with David Letterman and you get Jay Heinrichs.” Joseph Ellis, author of “Founding Brothers”


Judging Criteria (based on the Five Canons of Rhetoric)

Program from 1825
Program from 1825

Invention: The speaker discovered and chose the most persuasive arguments.

Arrangement: The speech was structured to quickly capture its audience, then build to a convincing conclusion.

Style: Vivid language was crafted to engage its audience intellectually and emotionally.

Memory: The speaker showed complete mastery of the text.

Delivery: Voice and body combined to present a clear and memorable message.

 


The Parker Merrill Speech Competition: Reviving A Tradition 

The Parker Merrill Speech Competition was founded, and in part funded, by Middlebury’s first professor, Frederick Hall. When Hall was hired in 1806 he was immediately granted a two-year leave to study in Europe. While there, he was befriended by Daniel Parker, a wealthy American living in Paris, and when Hall fell ill, Parker lent him $180 to tide him over. As David Stameshkin writes in The Town’s College: Middlebury College 1800-1915,  “When Hall tried to repay him, Parker refused to accept the money, saying that he liked to patronize the sciences.  Hall decided to give the sum (along with $120 of his own money) to Middlebury College as a prize for undergraduates who excelled in public speaking.”

Program from 1888
Program from 1888

In 1855, Middlebury pastor and College trustee Thomas A. Merrill added his name to the Parker Merrill Prize, seeking to recognize “the student who has excelled his competitors in the care and gracefulness of his manner, in the intonations and modulations of his voice and in the propriety and elegance of his manners.”  

Our last record of the annual Parker Merrill Speech Competition is an article in the May 27, 1965 edition of The Middlebury Campus.


For additional information about The Parker Merrill Speech Competition, write to us at: info@oratorynow.org