IU School of Liberal Arts

Curtis Tournament Participants “Think Peace. Speak Peace.”

News Categories: Communication Studies | Event Announcements | Student Accomplishments

"Think Peace," was the theme of the day when students, faculty, staff, and others gathered on Saturday, March 29, for the first annual Robert and Dana Curtis Memorial Oratorical Tournament. The competition challenged IUPUI undergraduates to think, write, and speak about their ideas for peaceful resolutions to conflicts across the globe. Competitor Jeff Cherry remarked, "How many opportunities do you get to make a speech about your own original idea? I’m so pleased to be here."

In addition to Cherry, the other competitors were Benjamin Becker, Jacob Deepak, Derek Rush, James Reddic, Kimberly Robinson, Lidelia Vazquez, Maen Hassuneh, Nate Bullock, Shama Shirazi, and Shehzad Qazi, competing for $4000 in prizes.

Nate Bullock was honored to be a part of the tournament. "Getting a chance to spend time with Dr. Curtis was a nice addition to the day. I am honored to have met such a wonderfully interesting person. He offers a unique perspective to both past and current conflicts. His stories from WWII are a powerful narrative highlighting the importance of peaceful resolution to conflicts around the world."

Bullock took first place with his speech about Somalia, "I’m sure that many did not know why the country is experiencing difficulties or, more importantly, what they could do to help. At its core, persuasion is about identification. I wanted people in the audience to identify with the plight of the Somali people."

Second place went to Lidelia Vazquez for her opinions on solving the conflict in Burma. In third place was Shehzad Qazi, who spoke of the current conflicts going on in Kashmir. Fourth place went to James Reddic for his ideas on stopping domestic violence, gangs, and other hostility in America. Jacob Deepak was the fifth finalist, with his ideas for resolving the current conflict in Tibet. And the sixth finalist was Derek Rush, who said his goal is to hinder the violence caused by cults such as Scientology.

Finalist Shehzad Qazi believes that it’s important to encompass all the people involved, and be respectful and allow them to "bring everything to the table;" to honor their ideas and opinions in order to create peaceful resolutions through compromise. Jacob Deepak added that peace and conflict resolution have to come from the brain, tangible ideas, and diplomacy, not from violence and the military.

The Curtis Memorial Oratorical Tournament was sponsored by Dr. Richard Curtis and his wife Beth Curtis. Dr. Curtis is an emeritus professor and former head of the Communication Department at IUPUI. He was a fighter pilot in WWII, and has written an autobiography about his experiences at war.

In addition to losing his friends and comrades, Dr. Curtis lost his brothers, Robert and Dana. He chose to dedicate the Tournament to them. Robert was gunned down while navigating a B-17 Bomber, June 13th 1943. Dana was killed in Korea, after a few days in which he and his troop were ill-prepared for the weather and unable to rest, Dana stepped on a land mine on April 14th, 1951. Dr. Curtis also lost a nephew to Vietnam.

"My family knows war," Curtis said in his speech at the end of the tournament.  "You don’t know, you cannot know, the kind of grief that struck my folks when one died, and another died."  His hope for the event is to encourage young people to consider peaceful resolutions for all kinds of conflict. He says, "This is a terrible thing we are involved in today in Iraq. What we need to do is to realize that there are lots and lots of ways of resolving conflict apart from shooting someone. Apart from violence."  

Pictured: Left: Nate Bullock with Professor Kim White-Mills and Dean Robert White. Right: Dr. and Mrs. Richard and Elizabeth Curtis.

[More event photos]

—Maggie Moore, English Major
   Liberal Arts News Bureau

Published on: April 17, 2008