In early September, Trond Jacobsen, the head of forensics since 2013, attended a meeting with Clark Honors College leadership to discuss completed travel planning and the upcoming season. Instead, he was informed the CHC would be pulling its funding from the program. 

Removing support for the program leaves funding uncertain for mock trial and speech and debate. Without faculty leadership at the head of the program, the clubs remain in limbo with their funds.

The end of support was attributed to budget cuts at the CHC. “I was told that they were going to end honors college support for the program. That also meant laying me off, first as director of forensics on Dec. 3, and then as a faculty member later on,” Jacobsen said.

In accordance with the 2025-26 ASUO budget book, the forensics program had previously been allotted $174,606 as part of the approved Incidental Fee budget, a 30% increase in funding. The Incidental Fee is a student fee funded by tuition. Jacobsen attributes the spike in funding to an overall increase in the cost of travel and tournament expenses and to “help match other funds in the forensics operations fund to hire a mock trial coach as an UO employee, not just a contractor.”

In the year 2024-25, between mock trial and debate, approximately 65 students went to at least one tournament, out of a total membership of 75-80 students, Jacobsen said. Last season, mock trial competed in ten tournaments and debate competed in seven.

Jacobsen was unable to provide the official roster for mock trial and debate, for last season, and had to reconstruct participation and travel numbers.

“The decision was a tough one because no one’s arguing about forensics’ value,” Dave Austin, senior director of communications at CHC, said. “The president (and) the provost said our budget is not good, and that responsibility falls on the deans and the administrators at the entire university.”

Since forensics no longer has staff support from CHC, the club does not have access to the funds that were “previously promised to us last school year,” Haley Ray Newbore, mock trial vice president of instruction, said on the program’s funding as of mid-September.

In an email correspondence between Dean Carole Stabile of CHC and ASUO, both programs are eligible to become registered student organizations, which would allow them funding. In an email Stabile indicated that the money would be returned to ASUO.

Austin confirmed that the funds had been returned to ASUO and that the funding still exists for the two programs. “ASUO has given us no indication that they want to take that money away from the two groups, nor has anyone else in the administration,” Austin said.

ASUO’s Department of Finance committee was unable to “provide further clarity.”

“DFC is actively working to enable forensics to compete this year and ensuring that those funds are accessible for students,” Bella Hoffert-Hay, senate seat nine on the DFC, said.

Forensics students are “totally in limbo right now,” Jacobsen said, as they are no longer departmentally-housed in the CHC or student-registered organizations. As a result, access to funding is unclear.

“We have asked, where is that money? What account is it? As of the last reckoning, we were told that it’s still in the forensics department account, but no one could tell us, is it there for good?” Jacobsen adds.

All events and competitions have been cancelled following the program’s elimination. Students who make up the
programs can work with ASUO to reinstate these events, according to a statement by UO spokesperson Eric Howald.

Budget reductions

Administration attributes the program’s elimination to CHC budget reductions, in relation to the $25-30 million budget deficit affecting the institution at large. UO’s forensics program served 59 students in the spring, with the majority being non-CHC students.

“In the current financial crisis, these resources must be directed more fully to Honors College students,” Howald said.

The university, through ASUO funding and CHC support, spends an estimated $6,100 to support each forensics student, according to a CHC Estimate. CHC administration cited the estimated cost as a factor in their decision to end support.

“It is patently unfair to use Honors College Student differential tuition to pay for a student organization that is mostly non honors college students. And I, at the end of the day, I don’t know how anyone can poke a hole in that argument,” Austin said.

Funding

The forensics department had three main funding channels, according to Jacobsen: ASUO, which contributed to travel expenses, CHC which provided the salaries to forensics staff and multiple small endowments made by alumni.

The endowments are only accessible if the program functions as a department, not as a student-run organization.

The salaries of forensics staff are funded through the additional $3,036 in tuition that CHC students pay each year. CHC’s combined funding for forensics faculty, including the salary of the director, was approximately $180,000, in FY25, according to the Clark Honors College Administration statistics.

Becoming a student organization

Austin said that the majority of speech and debate and mock trial teams not only operate, but thrive as student-run organizations:
“UCLA, USC, University of Washington and other similar schools, similar to UO, are some top notch schools. When they’re run as student organizations, they seem to have quite a high level of success. I think it can be done.”

Looking exclusively at the Big Ten, the overwhelming majority of debate organizations are departmentally housed and/or have a paid director position, according to Austin Thomas, director of forensics at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mironova said the limitations of becoming an entirely student-run organization include the inability to hire coaches, no single oversight entity to ensure continuity and extensive pressure on student leadership to manage club activity.

UO forensics has existed in an institutional home since 1920, Jacobsen said, making it increasingly challenging to adopt an entirely new structure with minimal planning time.

“Even if one acknowledges that there are modest budget savings this year… they can’t be large enough to justify doing this to the students instead of waiting until April, giving us time to try and work,” Jacobsen said.

What’s next?

Despite the circumstances, mock trial and debate leadership is confident for the program’s future.

“We are hoping to keep our season exactly the same despite our cuts. Our goal is to reestablish ourselves within the university, attend all of our tournaments this year and regain our funding,” Newbore said.

Masha Mironova, the debate team president said the debate team’s next steps include continuing practicing and preparing for future tournaments in
the case the decision is reversed.

“I think this decision was a poor decision made in the wrong way. And as they learn more from the students, from student government (and) from the alumni, I do believe the administration will conclude that they should make a different decision,” Jacobsen said.

This story has been updated for further clarification regarding CHC’s decision on funding for the forensics program.