Pi Kappa Delta, an honor society for the forensics team, became Wayne State College’s latest inducted club at the first Student Senate meeting of the school year. 

The forensics team, which started only a year ago, has already taken home hardware from state meets and competed at a national competition. 

Their first meet last year took place at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, MN, where they took four or five members to compete. Out of the list of small colleges attending, WSC gathered the most points and won a team award with three first place scores and one runner-up.  

The budding powerhouse also won the Michael Dreher Team Quality Award for obtaining the greatest number of points for the smallest number of entries.  

Throughout the rest of the season, the team collected successes at every stop along the way. 10 members qualified for a national tournament in April at Illinois State University.  

Because of their accomplishments, the members decided they needed to take advantage of the benefits that come with starting an honor society.  

There are two national competitions the group can qualify for through gaining bids during the season, but they can only attend the Pi Kappa Delta competition with membership in the society. 

Pi Kappa Delta holds their national competition in Pennsylvania every year. With their own chapter, the speech students will have the opportunity to qualify for and compete against colleges from across the country.  

“Just by showing up to the national tournament, it’s a great success in your community,” Erin Pfeifer, vice president of the forensics team, said. “Even just by watching other people, you can really learn a lot of tips and tricks.”  

Also, this coming semester, according to Forensics President Kirsten Fike, the club wishes to host high school speech districts at WSC.  

This, Fike said, will bridge the gap between high school speech groups and the college, acting as a learning experience and a way to recruit speech students to Wayne.  

Since the senate recognized this club, they will have their own lump sum of allocations to use to reach their goals. Also, with allocations, they can alleviate the cost and be able to attend all three national speech meets.  

Looking even further, Pfeifer hopes the honor’s society will allow the team to host their own collegiate meets, even a national competition.  

The Forensics Team currently has 15 members, consisting of all sorts of majors including English, education, business, and many more.  

If any student has any interest in joining the speech team, they can reach out to Fike, Pfeifer, or Coach Jonathan Laner.  

With a year already under their belts, the team will have many more victories this season, Pfeifer said. “Keep an eye out for our team and the activities coming up in the future.”