Performance Difference Radio

Paul Terlemezian with iFive Alliances and Melissa Wade with the Glenn Pelham Foundation discuss the Learning Technology Summit sponsored by Georgia LEARNS

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Melissa Maxcy Wade, M.A., M.T.S., Th.M., has been the Executive Director of Forensics at Emory University since 1972, and is a faculty member in the Division of Educational Studies.  She is the Executive Director of the Atlanta Urban Debate League, Director of the Emory National Debate Institute, and serves as the Executive Co-Director of the National Debate Project (university consortium: Emory, Georgia State, Tennessee State, and NYU).  She serves on the Academic Board of Directors of the International Debate Education Association, Board of Directors of the International Public Policy Debate Forum, Board of Directors of the National Debate Tournament, and is an advisor to the Associated Leaders of Urban Debate.  Wade is a political debate commentator for local, state, and national elections for various media.  She is one of only 3 university debate coaches in the U.S. who has served on the National Associated Press Presidential Debate Evaluation Panel for every U.S. presidential election since 1976.

Wade started her career as the top high school debate and speech student in the U.S. as designated by the National Forensics League competition points system in 1968, and graduated from Emory as one of the nation’s top intercollegiate debaters.  She is one of the leading debate coaches in the U.S., having coached Emory’s Barkley Forum to more than thirty national intercollegiate debate titles.  She has authored, co-authored, or edited over 150 publications related to debate issues, strategies, and pedagogy.  She has received national recognition from Georgetown University (National Coach of the Year Award), the University of South Carolina (Thomas Glenn Pelham National Coach of the Year Award), University of North Carolina (Outstanding Critic Award), Florida State University (Greg Phifer National Service Award), Wake Forest University and University of Missouri-Kansas City (Ovid Davis Award; for coaching the NDT national champions), University of Utah (Lucy Keele National Service Award), University of California, Fullerton (National CEDA Critic Award), San Diego State University (the Brownlee Award for Scholarship, Service, and Leadership), American Forensics Association (Distinguished Career Award) and the National Debate Coaches Association Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Service to Forensics Education.  She received Emory’s highest faculty honor, the Thomas Jefferson Award, in 2007.

Wade is a strong advocate for diversity in education.  She founded the Urban Debate League (UDL) in Atlanta in 1985, a partnership between the Barkley Forum of Emory University and the Atlanta Public Schools, as a response to the inequality in education in socio-economically challenged secondary schools.  The UDL brought the intellectual tools of critical thinking, research proficiency, and advocacy skills to urban students, and has grown into a national urban education movement that has served over 50,000 students and teachers in 24 cities in the U.S., such as New York, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Memphis, Minneapolis, and Seattle.  Over 100 colleges and universities are currently recruiting students from UDL populations.  Wade has served as national advisor for the urban debate network to the Open Society Institute, a principle funder, and has been the lead investigator for over $3 million of grant funding for various UDL projects.  The UDL program targeting secondary students in Atlanta Housing Authority communities was selected as the nation’s signature education program for the Bush White House initiative, Helping America’s Youth, and was one of only 8 programs recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice for national replication as a research validated youth anti-gang prevention program.  Wade is committed to teacher education and faculty development, and is actively participating in developing digital curriculum, professional development programs, and educational assessment methodologies for Debate Across the Curriculum, an instructional method for use in virtually any academic discipline.

Wade’s most recent projects include working with the development of college and secondary school competitive, educational, and community outreach debate programs in South Korea, Malaysia, and China.  She has directed debate institutes in Seoul at Ewha University and Kyung Hee University, lectured and made presentations at the Korean Development Institute’s Graduate School in Public Policy and Management, and is developing exchange programs between Korean, U.S., and UDL debate students.