On Friday, Nov. 15, Georgia State’s Department of Communication and Pearson Higher Education held the official Speech 1000 Public Speaking Prize competition in Classroom South.
Conor Brophy, a junior journalism major with an emphasis in telecommunications, came in first place in the final rounds and won a cash-prize amount of $300.
His topic for the speech competition was voice-overs in radio and animation.
“I wanted to compete in the speech competition because it seemed like it would be a great opportunity to present what you’ve been working on in class. The prize money was also a great incentive to compete in this competition as well,” Brophy said.
Ranking second and third place were Sarah Conklin and Christy Tarallo, respectively. Conklin ranked second place, winning $200. Tarallo received third place, winning $100.
Conklin, freshman marketing major, spoke on sex trafficking in Atlanta.
“I just wanted to raise awareness about sex trafficking in Atlanta, because not many people know that it is an issue here in our city. To be able to raise awareness to this many people is a really big blessing,” Conklin said.
Third-place winner Tarallo spoke on domestic surveillance, citing the NSA keeping records of citizens’ web-browsers history and text messages.
“I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do a great job while speaking to an audience. I want to become a politician some day, and I believe that public speech is a skill you have to be really good at,” Tarallo said when asked about how she felt when she heard that she was voted within the top three competitors.
Tarallo is a freshman political science major with emphasis in pre-law.
Professor Davin Grindstaff helped host the speech competition for students enrolled in Speech 1000. Professor Grindstaff teaches courses such as Speech 1000 and Speech 2050, and has been teaching at Georgia State since 1999.
“We had a bigger turn-out in comparison to when we host the speech competition at the end of the semester,” Professor Grindstaff said.
Students taking Professor Grindstaff’s Speech 1000 course also had the opportunity to get extra credit points for attending the competition.
The Public Speaking Prize competition has been hosted near the end of every fall and spring semester at Georgia State for Speech 1000 students since 2007.
Grindstaff said he felt the competition went really well, and students got progressively better as they became more comfortable speaking to a large audience.
This semester there were approximately 90 students participating in the speech competition. These students were enrolled in Georgia State’s Fundamentals of Human Communication courses.
The event began with 40-50 students per lab section, and check-in times for the first rounds (A&B;) began at 9:30 a.m. in Classroom South.
The semi-final and final rounds were video recorded and archived online for educational purposes through Pearson on My Communication Lab.
The event was entirely supported by Pearson Higher Education, who provided the cash prizes as well as food that was available for the speakers and audience at the semi-final and final rounds.
Pearson Higher Education has partnered with the Department of Communication at Georgia State in order to produce the reader and ancillary text materials for Speech 1000.
