Amplify Competition

For the purposes of this competition, we define public speaking as the verbal delivery of knowledge and ideas with the intent of influencing or enhancing a listener’s views on a particular topic or issue. This category will take the form of a public event at which students may perform a “TED”-style talk of no more than 5 minutes on a topic of their choosing. The event takes place on February 8, 2025, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Judges will be present to evaluate speakers on both content and performance. Attendees of the Public Speaking competition event will have an opportunity to vote to award a $200 People’s Choice prize to one performance. Additionally, judges will announce three $500 prize winners at the Awards Ceremony following the speaking event from 4:00-5:00pm. Performances will be recorded and featured on the Amplify Gallery website after the event.

All students who participate in the Amplify Public Speaking Competition receive support and coaching in advance of their performance through participating in a 1.5-day Public Speaking Workshop, held at Smith College on January 23-24, 2025. Registered speakers will be STRONGLY encouraged to return to campus in time to participate in the Workshop in person (if a student is unable to return to campus early, please contact Megan Lyster to discuss alternatives). The Workshop will help speakers hone the topic of their talk and research their argument, as well as offer some tips and practice speaking with confidence. 

In previous year’s competitions, the most successful talks have been those that focused on a timely and well-researched topic focused on one or two key ideas or calls to action, performed with minimal to no notes. Talks can present a personal connection to the issue for the speaker but are not required to do so; in either case, successful talks tend to be those that combine a human angle with careful research to support the idea being advanced.

Registration

Registration opens Tuesday, October 15, 2024, for the Amplify Public Speaking Competition. Students interested in participating in the competition should register no later than Wednesday, January 15, 2025. Registered students will receive further communication about the J-Term Public Speaking Workshop, as well as additional competition logistics and criteria.

We define public writing as a written piece (published or intended to be published) that seeks to influence or enhance a reader’s views on or raise the visibility or salience of a particular topic or issue. This year’s competition will focus on the op-ed format for all submissions in the Public Writing category. Op-eds are short articles that are grounded in research and express the writer’s informed and focused opinion on a particular issue or topic. Op-eds serve as a form of “thought leadership,” as they are a powerful way of translating a writer’s knowledge and/or experience to influence public opinion. For guidelines on how to write an op-ed, check out these resources from the Jacobson Center.

Op-eds submitted to the competition should be 800-1200 words, and may be written either as part of a Smith College course assignment or as an independently researched and developed piece of writing. While the op-ed does not need to have been published, students submitting work should have a clear sense of which public media outlet(s) they could imagine submitting the piece to.

In previous year’s competitions, the most successful entries have offered well-researched and deeply nuanced perspectives on current issues. Judges in this category generally look for pieces of writing that offer a fresh take on the topic, and that they can imagine encountering in public media outlets. Submissions can present a personal connection to the issue for the author but are not required to do so; in either case, successful submissions tend to be those that combine a human angle with careful research to support the idea being advanced.

Submissions

Students interested in participating in the competition should submit an entry no later than Wednesday, January 22, 2024. 

New to Amplify in 2024-25, the Wild Card category will focus on a different form of public work each year, drawing from practices in the arts and multimedia. For the Wild Card category each year, the Wurtele Center will sponsor events and workshops in the fall with guest practitioners, which will include a deeper dive into that year’s featured format, providing some inspiration and hands-on practice. Check out this year’s ZineFest events in October!

This year’s Wild Card format is the zine, which we define as a small-circulation self-published booklet of original or appropriated texts and images designed to share information, educate readers on an issue, create community, and/or as a call to action. Zines became a powerful form of do-it-yourself publication and activist artistic expression in the late twentieth century with the widespread accessibility of copy machines. Given the wide range of ways they can incorporate text and imagery, as well as their reproducibility, zines hold the potential to function as a powerful methodology of activist leadership.

Submissions can present a personal connection to the issue for the author but are not required to do so; in either case, judges will be looking for submissions that combine a human angle with careful research to support the idea being advanced. We encourage students interested in submitting to this category to consider the Amplify Competition criteria and imagine how your zine might best fit within them as you design and create it.

Submissions may use a range of artistic techniques, but will ultimately need to be able to be scanned/digitized and printed (in black and white or color) at a page size of no more than 8.5’ x 11” (standard letter-size paper). Submissions may include between 8-16 pages, including the front and back covers. (As the zine is folded, each side of the fold constitutes one page even if the content of two pages function together as a single spread.) 

Zines will be submitted in the form of a digital scan (please reach out to ecohn@smith.edu if you need help with scanning your zine). Students who have submitted a zine will then be awarded a small stipend to make 50 copies of the zine to be distributed in the Campus Center as part of the Amplify festivities on Saturday, February 8, 2025. For more information, see the submission form (to be linked in late fall).