Roxanne Tuscany, director of forensics at Grossmont College, is among the top educators in the U.S. honored by the Phi Rho Pi National Forensic Association.
Tuscany, a Professor of Communication and Co-Chair of the Communication Department at Grossmont, joins other educators from around the nation who have received the association’s Distinguished Service Award, which dates to the early 1970s. Tuscany received the award this past spring at the Phi Rho Pi National Tournament for Speech and Debate in Bethesda, Md.
“It’s primarily an award of my service for 33 years in the program at that particular tournament, which is our national community college tournament,” Tuscany said, adding that it’s also a recognition of her efforts to continuously bring Grossmont students to the tournament to compete. The speech and debate program at Grossmont has been in existence since the college was founded in the early 1960s.
Grossmont students compete in about ten competitions each academic year. Nearly all of them feature teams from four-year colleges and universities, as well as community colleges. Grossmont students compete in numerous events at these competitions, including those involving formal debates on a wide variety of subjects, but also many others. These include “Limited Prep” events such as Impromptu Speaking and Extemporaneous Speaking; “Platform Speaking” events such as Informative, Persuasive, Speech to Entertain, and Communication Analysis; and “Oral Interpretation” events such as Prose, Poetry, Drama, Duo, Program Oral Interpretation, and Readers Theater.
Tuscany said community colleges are very competitive with teams from four-year institutions, in part because community colleges generally have more long-term continuity in their speech and debate programs – with directors and coaches, and assistant coaches who work closely and consistently with student competitors over long periods of time. At Grossmont, for example, students can take forensics classes for all four of the semesters they attend the college before transferring to a four-year institution. Currently, about 40 students participate in forensics at Grossmont.
The results have been impressive. Back in 1995, Grossmont won first place at the Phi Rho Pi national tournament, and students in subsequent years have consistently placed high in several events. Over the years, Grossmont students have bested the team from U.C. Berkeley, and surpassed their counterparts at Yale University. At the same time, some community colleges, including Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, CA and Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA, have been consistently more difficult to beat, Tuscany said.
Graduates have gone on to be journalists, actors, teachers, and even coaches of other speech and debates teams. All students who participate in forensics leave the program better equipped to express themselves, formulate a strong argument, and appreciate opposing sides of issues.
“Especially in debate, students will come in and say, ‘Oh yes, I love to argue. I argue all the time,'” Tuscany said. “And then I’ll say, ‘That’s exactly what we want. But how do you feel about arguing the side you don’t agree with?’ Because that’s what we do.”
Tuscany loves to share the fact that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was involved in speech and debate in high school. And Grossmont’s President, Denise Whisenhunt, participated in forensics when she was in high school.
Will Harris, who won two gold medals and a bronze at last spring’s national tournament in Bethesda, is now majoring in English at SDSU. He said Tuscany brings several valuable attributes to her coaching that produces winning teams. “She has a great hands-on style that I haven’t seen” among other coaches, he said. “You’ll get a couple lines in, and she’ll stop you and she’ll tweak something and then keep going. At the same time, she allows students to be really open with their creativity.”
Former Grossmont student Andrew Jassick, who went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in strategic communications from National University, said participating in forensics at Grossmont changed his career trajectory from culinary arts to teaching. Jassick, a Navy veteran, said he coaches the speech and debate team at San Dieguito Academy High School in Encinitas, and he’s taught a public speaking class at a summer camp at Stanford University – among other activities.
“This is all thanks to Roxanne,” Jassick said. “(She’s) the entire reason that it ended up as good as it has been. I owe everything to her.”