On Thursday, Nov. 30, students and faculty gathered in Hepburn Hall to witness the final round of St. Lawrence University’s first public speaking contest. Of the 16 SLU students who entered the competition, six speakers were chosen to move on to the final round. Competitors delivered 4-to-10-minute-long speeches on a topic of their choice.    

The Maurer Family Foundation is to thank for the generous cash prizes awarded to the contest’s winners for their show of excellence in public speaking. The preliminary round was judged by Tyler Rife, Kirk Fuoss, Andrew Donofrio and Allison Rowland. The final round was judged by Jennifer Baker, Jennifer Thomas and Andrew Donofrio again.    

The panel of expert judges from the Performance and Communication Arts faculty awarded Emily Perez ’26 first place and $300 for her speech about American sign language. Perez grew up using ASL after her sister taught it to her. Perez taught the audience a few ASL signs during her speech. “I really like the language and I think it is really pretty, so I wanted to bring it to other people,” said Perez. Judge Andrew Donofrio found Perez’s delivery compelling, organized, and well-prepared. “She, as a speaker, had what I like to call presence or charisma; I could see her connecting with the audience,” said Donofrio.   

Keith Omane-Agyei ’26 was awarded $100 as the runner-up for his speech on the Hypothalamic Pituitary Axis. Omane-Agyei showed his skillful public speaking abilities by successfully explaining an interesting but complicated topic. “We were impressed by his ability to explain these enormously complicated neuroscientific languages and processes in ways that we can understand them,” said Donofrio.   

The judges determined their selection in private while the audience had the chance to vote for their favorite speech. Rafael Escoto ’24 won the audience choice award of $300 with a speech about saving the BIPOC Theme Houses on SLU’s campus. Donofrio praised Escoto for his energy and passion as he inspired the audience. “Once he was in front of the large group, you could see the passion and real moments of connection,” said Donofrio. And with an engaging and fascinating speech about Artificial Intelligence, Mahmoud Ali ’26 took home $100 as the audience choice runner-up.    

The crowd was captivated by each speech given, and the space was filled with a contagious force of positive energy as they cheered on each speaker. Sisco Tellez ‘25 came to support friends participating in the event. He enjoyed hearing the array of diverse topics presented by the contestants. For Tellez, his favorite part of the contest was being able to vote for his favorite speech as an audience member. “I think that gave us a lot of participation and made us feel like we have a voice there,” said Tellez.   

Ashley Rife directed the event and looks forward to SLU holding similar events in the future. Rife explained how the goal of the contest was to create an event to celebrate public speaking, and she is happy with the resulting support the contest has received. “Our department has performance and communication, so we wanted to see what it would be like if the communication side had a big event because, obviously, theatre has big performances all the time,” said Rife. The hope for the future of this event is for it to grow in awareness and participation. Rife hopes to see more engagement from different parts of the university in the future. “It’s hard to get the word out on this campus because we always have so much going on all the time,” said Rife. For the first public speaking contest at SLU, Rife is proud of everyone involved and excited for similar events in the future. “I think my favorite part was seeing how happy some of the winners were and getting to share in their joy of being rewarded for the hard work that they’ve done,” said Rife.