Executive Board

Teamwork and Leadership

Unlike many student organizations of its kind, the Harvard Speech and Parliamentary Debate Society is entirely student-run. Most of the responsibility is shouldered by a group of five elected officers that comprise the team's executive board. Elected on an annual basis, the executive board has many responsibilities, including (but not limited to):

• Organizing the annual Harvard Debating Championships
• Training new members and helping them through the comp process
• Handling team finances to enable members to attend tournaments all around the world
• Representing HSPDS at American Parliamentary Debate Association meetings

Any comped member of the team is free to run for the executive board in elections usually held at the beginning of spring term. Currently, there exist five executive positions:

• President: Head of the Executive Committee and Board as a whole, principal representative of HSPDS, manager of HSPDS’s parliamentary debate tournament schedule, and responsible for overseeing all of HSPDS’s activities, committees, and sub-committees
• Vice President of Tournament Administration: Organizer of HSPDS’ annual parliamentary debate tournaments and creator of institutional memory regarding those tournaments. This includes administration of Members-at-Large in consultation with the President as it pertains to tournament concerns.
• Vice President of Recruitment and Training: Leads recruitment and training, administers all comp requirements, and maintains records of membership and electoral qualification status.
• Vice President of Finance: Maintains an accurate account of all team finances for regular review by the Executive Committee, produces a yearly budget, and coordinates all fundraising activities.
• Vice President of Operations: Handles the day-to-day organizational concerns of the team: weekly HSPDS registration for and transportation to other tournaments, administration of Members-at-Large post-tournament (in consultation with the President), and collection and collation of minutes and other forms of institutional memory.

Current HSPDS Executive Board:

President	Yihan Tan, 2012	yihantan@fas.harvard.edu
VP Tournament Administration	Wes Hopkin, 2011	whopkin@fas.harvard.edu
VP Recruitment and Training	Alex Loomis, 2012	loomis@fas.harvard.edu
VP Finance	Jaymin Kim, 2012	jaymin.kim@gmail.com
VP Operations	Coulter King, 2013	coulterking@college.harvard.edu

Members at Large

The five executive officers of the team appoint and work with a group of officers known as members-at-large, who head various sub-committees created by the executive board and to help in the administration and organization of HSPDS.