The Clark Prize

Eligibility

The Clark Prize is open to all senior students in all disciplines. 

Requirements

The Clark competition requires a speech that addresses the assigned topic. The prize will be awarded to the senior who, through both content and delivery, most effectively addresses the assigned topic. 2024's topic is:

Shakespeare’s Juliet mused “What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” Often entities (e.g., companies, organizations) and individuals change names; for example, Twitter was rebranded as X. For this year’s Clark Prize, answer Juliet’s question: What’s in a name?

Preliminary Round

To participate in the 2024 Preliminary Round, record a video of your speech and submit it to this Google Form. Be sure to check out our tips for virtual presentations. Scoring criteria are listed below.

All recordings must be a single take. That is, you may not splice together different recordings to make one complete speech.

Final Round

Each final round competitor will submit a detailed outline or manuscript of the final speech. Each final round competitor will present a six to eight minute speech. Speeches should not be read from a script. Scoring for the final round will be based on the same criteria as the preliminary round, with 10% reserved for evaluation of the content based on the submitted materials.

Scoring

The judges will assign scores on two broad areas: content/organization and delivery. 

CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION

• Content is relevant to speech prompt and maintains a focus appropriate for the audience (Hamilton community).
• Clear organization was followed consistently throughout the speech.
• Speech consistently used evidence that was appropriate for the topic (e.g., narrative, statistics) and was cited as appropriate.
• Language use was appropriate for audience (e.g., avoided jargon) and occasion.
• Logical connections were clearly made between ideas within the speech.

DELIVERY

• Speaker’s use of vocal qualities (volume, pitch, emphasis) enhanced the presentation.
• Nonverbal behaviors (gestures and eye contact) enhanced the presentation.
• Speaker was fluent (e.g., avoided fillers such as “um”) and conversational.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

• The speaker was engaging throughout the presentation.
• The overall presentation was consistently persuasive.

Recent winners

2023

Samuel Lieberman ’23, “Do Androids Dream of Public Speaking?” | Sam’s video

2022

2021

Lily Delle-Levine ’21, “Time for Change: Social Media as Social Action” | Lily’s video

2020

Haotian Yang ’20, “Getting Out There: Make Diversity Happen” | Haotian’s video

2019

Emily Aviles ’19, “The True Price of Higher Education” | Emily’s video

2018

Ryan Bloom ’18, “Don’t Follow the Yellow Brick Road: A Defense of the Open Curriculum” | Ryan’s video

2017

Jake Blount ’17, “Modern Conservatives and the Myth of Campus Censorship” | Jake’s video