The UTEP Forensics Team Accomplishments this year!

The UTEP Forensics Team are headed back from the last tournament of the year. Over the course of the season, our students won 120 individual awards, 26 of which were 1st place.

• At the Western States Communication Association tournament, UTEP students won nearly half of all individual event categories (5 out of 11). Additionally, Alexis Vega beat out nearly 100 research papers by students from across the nation to win the Top Paper Award at the Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference. His essay was based on a speech that he performed last year analyzing an advertising campaign by a gay South African rugby team.

• At the Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament, hosted by Hofstra University, all three participating students had events ranked in the top 10% in the country. Sabrina Bustillos was also named the National Champion in Extemporaneous Speaking at one of the largest national tournaments of the year.

• The UTEP Forensics Team had 5 events advance to elimination rounds at the National Forensics Association Tournament in Santa Ana, CA (Sabrina Bustillos in Impromptu Speaking and Extemporaneous Speaking; Alexis Vega in Impromptu Speaking, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Persuasive Speaking). The team also took 5th place in team sweepstakes in the President's II Division. Overall, the team is ranked 5th in the nation among small to medium sized teams.

• Alexis Vega was one of only two students from Texas to qualify for the Interstate Oratorical Association tournament in Philadelphia, PA. Alexis is the first UTEP student to ever qualify for this tournament and placed 4th in the country with his speech about the Trump administration's child separation policy at the US-Mexico border.

We are confident that next year will be filled with even more success for these hard working students with Carlos Train as The Forensics Director.