Whether online or in person, Education Unlimited proudly offers top tier curriculum in our Public Speaking Institute! To learn more about our online program, click here.
Debate
Learn the art of verbal combat! Students will learn how to construct persuasive positions, defend against and attack each other’s arguments, and cross-examine effectively. Students will debate a variety of age- and experience-appropriate topics, form teams, and pit themselves against their co-campers. Past debate topics have included: climate change, U.S. military adventures, and the legal drinking age.
Persuasive Speaking
This useful activity teaches students to craft and deliver convincing speeches. Students start by performing a number of pre-written speeches in order to learn delivery, timing, and intonation. When students display comfort with delivery, they will begin to construct speeches based on their interests. Students learn to choose topics, establish captivating introductions, organize speech content, and deliver compelling conclusions! The focus is on speaking in a natural voice, with few or no notes, rather than writing an essay and merely reading it out loud, the form of "public speaking" taught by most teachers. All students end the week by presenting a speech in front of a large group of fellow campers.
Electives: In the evenings, students will get to choose from at least two of the below elective speaking activities.
- Model Congress: This event provides an introduction to diplomatic and legislative speaking. Students role-play as members of Congress. Persuasive speaking, negotiations, and compromise are all stressed in a forum that allows students to sample the most exciting part of the political process!
- Negotiations: You can't always get what you want... or can you? The negotiations activity stresses public speaking as a business and personal tool. Students will role-play scenarios in which their abilities to compromise and persuade are developed.
- Reader's Theater: In this fun and popular event, students write and perform a short play (or learn and perform a play for younger students). Students create their characters, devise plot twists, write dialogue, and deliver partial practice performances followed by the whole play.
- Improvisational Speaking: This type of speaking requires students to think on their feet to deliver speeches with little or no preparation time. In the opening class, students are given ample time to prepare for short speeches, and over the course of the program, the time to prepare will shorten as the speeches lengthen. Fun and challenging topics are chosen, often with hilarious results!
Public Speaking Institute students experience university life during their week on a college campus. Students live together in the dormitories, experience campus dining, and relax on campus with a wide array of sports and arts activities. Additionally, the camp will take one mid-week excursion to a local attraction, such as an amusement park or sports venue. The most recurrent comment made by students after camp is, “ I never knew I would have so much fun!”
Education Unlimited believes in small-group, immersive learning with subject matter experts and experienced teachers. We strive to provide industry-leading instruction to all of our students and hold all staff to the highest possible standards. Staff assignments vary by program and location. Some of our recent staff members for this program include:
Brianna Broady, MA - Camp Director and Instructor
Brianna Broady is a lecturer with a Master of Arts in Communication Studies from California State University, Northridge in Southern California. Brianna teaches classes at several Southern California colleges in Communication Studies in her primary areas of interest: performance studies and intercultural communication studies. A seasoned debater and coach, Brianna has brought extensive experience to her roles as both a public speaking instructor and camp director for Education Unlimited since 2012.
As Director of Individual Events for Santa Monica College, Brianna coaches students in competitive public speaking in a variety of disciplines. During her undergraduate years at California State University, Northridge she competed in events ranging from informative speaking to programmed oral interpretation. Brianna was the first person in the history of the school to qualify for the prestigious National Individual Event Tournament of Champions all four years that she competed.
John Kephart, PhD - Camp Director and Instructor
Dr. John Kephart III is an associate professor at California State University, Northridge. Dr. Kephart has a PhD in Rhetorical Theory and Criticism from the University of Southern California. A member of the Education Unlimited team since 2008, Dr. Kephart has served as instructor, director and curriculum designer. He helped to develop the curriculum for both the A+ Pre College and A+ High School summer camp programs. Dr. Kephart has a teaching philosophy that values students’ active engagement in their own learning; he focuses on encouraging students to find their own voice and perspective on contemporary issues, helping them to be more avid learners, and more engaged citizens.
In addition to his faculty position, Dr. Kephart is also the director of the speech and debate program at CSU Northridge; he has over 16 years of experience coaching debate competitors of all ages. A Los Angeles native and avid Dodgers fan, Dr. Kephart received his Masters of Arts and Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies from The University of Southern California.
Cameron (Cam) Martin, MA - Instructor
Cameron is highly regarded in speech and debate circles not only as a successful former high school and collegiate competitor himself, but also as an accomplished coach. As a collegiate competitor, Cam received two gold medals at collegiate Nationals.
As a coach, Cam has served on the the California High School Speech Associations Board of Directors where he is the Director of the Middle School State Championships and assists with the direction of the High School State Championships. In addition, Cameron directs one of the largest high school invitational tournaments in the state of California.
Cam's top priority is to help students build confidence in themselves by developing their voices around their sincerest passions. He believes that every student should have their own agency and be able to witness the impact they can have on their communities. Cam is deeply committed to helping students succeed and is always looking for new ways to promote speech and debate education in the community.
Jessica Kwack, MA - Instructor
Jessica Kwack is a teacher at California State University, Northridge, where she also received both her Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Communication Studies. Since 2014, Jessica has taught the Fundamentals of Public Speaking as well as Argumentation. In addition to her position at CSU Northridge, she also teaches as an adjunct faculty member at several colleges across Southern California. Jessica also serves as the Assistant Coach of the Matador Speech and Debate Team at CSU Northridge, focusing on individual events such as informative and persuasive speaking.
Jessica has been with Education Unlimited since 2015. A native to the Los Angeles area, Jessica loves the sun, the movies, and her home basketball team, the Los Angeles Laker
Emily Galper, MA - Instructor
Emily Galper is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
studying media effects and the promotion of preventative health behaviors. Shereceived her Masters of Arts and Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies from California State University, Northridge where she taught both public speaking and argumentation in addition to coaching on the speech and debate team.During her time at CSUN, Emily received the Elizabeth Berry Outstanding TA Award, the Kent Joel Snyder Award, and the Richard Aronstam Forensics Award. More recently, Emily presented her master’s thesis at the International Communication Association Conference in Paris, France (May 2022). In her free time, Emily enjoys hiking, people-watching, and traveling.
Robert Loy, MA - Instructor
Robert Loy is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Los Angeles Pierce College. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from California State University, Northridge. Since 2014, he has been a lecturer at CSU Northridge in the areas of public speaking and argumentation. A director with Education Unlimited since 2013, Robert has dedicated time throughout his career to ensure youth gain access to knowledge and skills to prepare them for college and career success.
Robert has received recognition throughout his academic career, most notably the Outstanding Teaching Associate Award and Outstanding Graduate Student Award of 2014 during his time at CSUN. He has tutored for Project GRAD Los Angeles and worked with students in the Los Angeles Unified School District AVID Program. In his free time, Robert enjoys going to various baseball stadiums (Dodger Stadium is so far the best), visiting Disneyland/California Adventure and eating at new food truck venues.
Wiliam Russel - Instructor
Bill Russell has spent his entire adult life learning how to craft arguments and present them most effectively. After a successful career as a college debater where he finished among the top ten teams at the National Debate Tournament three times, Bill spent nine years as the assistant director of Debate at Dartmouth College. During that times his teams won a national championship, and qualified twenty-one teams for the elimination rounds (Sweet 16) of the national tournament. Bill has over twenty years of experience teaching argumentation, debate, and public speaking to high school students at summer educational camps. Bill has spent the past twelve years practicing law, bringing his skill for argument development and presentation to a different audience. During that time he has helped in briefing a successful Supreme Court appeal in the most important securities fraud decision in the last thirty-five years.
Robert Labeda - Instructor
Bobby Lebeda has been a speech and debate coach for over 10 years. He got his Masters in Communication Studies from California State University in 2017. He's taught every age group from elementary to university. He is a full-time speech and debate teacher and adjunct professor. He's the co-president of the Tri-County Speech and Debate League, on the West Los Angeles National District board and on the Board of Directors for the California High School Speech Association. In his free time, he likes to write, cook, sing, and perform improvisational comedy.
Marina Shew - Instructor
Marina Shew is a law student at Columbia Law School in New York City. She has dual Bachelor’s Degrees in Philosophy and Political Science from Clemson University in South Carolina. In both high school and college, Marina was the president of her respective debate teams, taking on leadership, teaching, and mentoring roles for younger students. She's also taught both debate and public speaking in Beijing, China. She has experience in several styles of public speaking, from debate to mock trial to ethics bowl.
Marina is looking forward to getting to know students on a personal level and working with them individually to find their voice and refine their public speaking skills. In her teaching, she aims to create a friendly, comfortable, and approachable environment where everyone can work collaboratively to achieve personal improvement. In addition to her love of the law, Marina enjoys international travel to experience different countries and cultures. She also enjoys swing dancing, which she teaches in her spare time.
Stephen Buettler - Camp Director
Stephen Buettler is an instructor and public speaking expert with dual degrees in literature and philosophy from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition to roles as lecturer and curriculum director at the university level, Stephen has over 15 years of experience teaching and consulting for high school speech and debate programs. Stephen has been Camp Director of the Education Unlimited Summer Camp Program at Georgetown since 2014.
Stephen has additional experience in logistics coordination; he has consulted for numerous production and event planning companies throughout the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. His work in this field allows him to combine his passion for communication with a desire to make large scale events more sustainable and community-focused.
Hershini Gopal - Instructor
Hershini is a graduate of UCLA Law School. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of Maryland. During her undergraduate years, Hershini worked for the United Nations Environmental Programme in Washington D.C. where she helped prepare for the 2015 Paris Climate Summit. She also spent two years working as a paralegal for the Department of Justice. In addition to her work in D.C., Hershini was also a Mock Trial competitor for the University of Maryland for three years, and upon graduation, she returned to her hometown of Denver, Colorado where she coached her former high school mock trial team to the state finals.
As a Colorado native, Hershini enjoys skiing and warming up afterward with vast quantities of chai.
