A speech contest scheduled for Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. in the GUC Performance Center is the first event planned by the newly registered student organization, Lion Com.

The contest, open only to students enrolled in Communication 201 Fundamentals of Speech or Communication 210 Business and Professional Speech in the spring, summer or fall semesters during 2013, began with a preliminary competition on Tuesday,. The top six speakers will compete for a first place prize of $100, a $75 second place prize and a $50 third place prize all funded by the Department of Communications.

“We’ve only opened the contest to these students because we think these classes are predominately freshman, and we don’t want this to be a competition between new students and seniors who have already studied communication,” said Lion Com President Lauren Alsup.

Speeches for the preliminary round, required to be five minutes in length, could cover any persuasive or informative topic.

The final round of competition for the top six speakers. Set to take place next week, it requires that speeches last between eight and 10 minutes.

“This is a way for us to get our name out there,” said Lion Com faculty adviser Stephanie Montgomery.

The organization is also planning events to reach out to the entire campus community by helping students from all majors and concentrations develop their communication skills. The events, which are still in the discussion and planning phases, include personal tutoring with members of Lion Com. Workshops and seminars that will be designed to assist students who wish to build communication skills suitable for a variety of environments, are also included.

“We want to be a resource for the entire campus community because everyone needs communication skills,”Alsup said.  “No matter what your major is, you are going to need the skills that we want to teach.”

Some of the areas of communication skills the group wants to teach in seminars and workshops include interviewing, deception cues, argumentation and debate, blended family communication speech delivery, listening, interpersonal skills, stress relief, health communication [patient-doctor communication], story telling and relationships, Montgomery said.

“I think this would help with interviewing for a job,” said Shayla Pearsall, a nursing major. “An anxiety workshop would also be beneficial.”

UNA nursing student Jessica Potts said that it was one thing to get the answers right on a test, but a completely different thing to walk into a patient’s room and put your skills into action. 

“That requires good communication skills,” Potts said.

The need for the skills that Lion Com would like to teach in its workshops was evident in Lion Com’s Vice President Seth Turner’s professional world experience, he said. 

“When I was hired by Apple Inc., the company helped me hone my skills in communication that I already had in order to do what they needed me to do,” Turner said. “They didn’t just teach me how to communicate, but spent their time teaching me how to work specifically for the company. What they [employers] need are people who can build relationships.”

Alsup said that two workshops she would like to see most included gender communication and social media, especially in today’s technological world. 

“We are trying to find ways to teach students skills that are often required but never taught,” Montgomery said. “We think the way to do this will be through the individual tutoring and workshops we’ve discussed.”

Although the organization has only 10 members now, the group is looking to expand its membership, Montgomery said. 

The low membership may be that the student body is not aware of what public communication encompasses, Alsup said. 

“When I started at UNA, I knew that I wanted to major in Communications, but I didn’t know what I wanted to concentrate on,” Alsup said. “I had no idea what public communication was, but once I found out what it was about, I knew that was what I wanted to study.“

“I got a late start in the game because of that, and I don’t want it to be too late for other students to decide that they might like to study public communication as well.”

Lion Com meets on Thursdays at 3:30 p.m. in Communications Building Room 130.

For information about joining Lion Com, to share suggestions or to learn more about communication tutoring, Montgomery may be contacted at [email protected] or Alsup may be contacted at [email protected].