Historic endowment speaks volumes about George Mason’s Forensics Team

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Decades of success for the George Mason University Forensics Team are being rewarded through a landmark gift from Bruce Manchester and his partner and husband of 46 years, James "Fred" Emory. During Manchester's tenure as director of forensics at George Mason, students won more than 10,000 individual and team awards in intercollegiate competition.

This historic planned gift from Manchester and Emory is the largest commitment to date pledged by a George Mason faculty member.

Professor Emeritus Bruce Manchester stands next to a photo of himself in the Horizon Hall exhibit: "Past, Present, Future: Mason's Core Remains Constant." Photo by Eduardo Macedo/Office of University Branding

Their gift will establish endowments to support the nationally recognized team in perpetuity. The pledge, in the form of a future bequest, will create endowed funds to support the positions of program director and assistant director, as well as provide lasting student support to the program through an existing endowed fund. Creating endowed faculty positions helps attract the best professors in the nation to George Mason to teach and lead this prestigious program.

"I could not have asked for a more rewarding career than I had at George Mason. I know how incredibly valuable the forensics program is to students, and I simply want to give back as much as I can to that program," Manchester said. "As an educator, I want to make sure that George Mason students will always have the opportunity for a strong forensics education."

Manchester arrived at George Mason in 1975, a time when the young university was eager to find exemplars of success to establish its reputation and credibility. He served as the director of the forensics program from 1975 through 1993, aided by assistant director Sheryl Friedley. The named endowed faculty positions honor Manchester, the George Mason team's longest serving director, and Friedley, the team's longest serving assistant director.

"I came here because I was fascinated by the idea of the challenge that George Mason was offering," recalls Manchester, who is now retired and living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "Here was a chance to be on the ground floor in a place that didn't even have a communication degree, and to be directly involved in developing the degree program."

Sheryl Friedley and Bruce Manchester, holding the trophy, and the winning Forensics Team members celebrate their national championship victory in 1979. Photo provided

The previous forensics director, Margaret Duffner, who started the program, had been affectionately called "Ma" by her students, Manchester says. "So when I got there, the team decided to call me 'Doc' since I had a PhD and was too young to be called 'Pa'!"

Together, Manchester and Friedley put George Mason forensics in the national spotlight, winning the East Coast Championship an extraordinary 18 consecutive years. George Mason finished in the national top five for 16 of those years, including winning the American Forensic Association national championship in 1979. The pair coached a total of 119 national finalists.

Remarkably, the teams achieved these results even though at least half the team members over the years had no previous forensics experience, Manchester said. "In all the years I was director, we did not have a single student on scholarship for forensics. They were just regular students-they would see our recruiting signs on campus and decide to give it a try."

"Forensics made them better speakers, better writers. They got better at their academics, their time management," said Manchester. "If they were willing to put in the work and grow, I was willing to work with them. And I'm very proud of what they did and were able to achieve."

Professor Emeritus Bruce Manchester (seated) gets a standing ovation at the Forensics Program's 50th anniversary celebration. Photo by Eduardo Macedo/Office of University Branding

"Cocurricular programs such as George Mason's Forensics Team give students the opportunity to learn and collaborate across disciplines, to uncover insights and gain rich experiences that will contribute to their success after graduation," said Ann Ardis, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "This extraordinary commitment from Manchester and Emory represents the ideals of how philanthropy can support teaching, students, and programs, to ensure support over generations."

In the years since, the Forensics Team has continued its outstanding showings and is currently under the direction of Dawn Lowry.

After stepping down as forensics director, Manchester continued as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Communication through 2004, serving as associate chair. He was twice named Faculty Member of the Year by the George Mason University Alumni Association and also received George Mason's David J. King Teaching Award, among other honors. The Communication Department's student award for outstanding academic achievement is also named in his honor.

For more than 20 years, Manchester was the vice chair of the American Forensic Association's National Speech Tournament (AFA-NST) Committee. In 2004, the association permanently renamed its annual scholarly research grant as the Dr. Bruce Manchester Scholar Series.

Many of his Forensics Team members remain in touch with Manchester to this day. "Whether you were new to the team or a four-year veteran, the expectations were the same, and you were valued the same," Manchester said. "We had a saying: 'The most important thing is not to win, but to struggle.' That was a motto we lived by. I wanted my students not necessarily to win, but to struggle-both on the team, and in the classroom. And if you do, I promise you that success will come from that."

For 50 years, the team members have had as their highest goal a top five team award at the national championship. Manchester added, "As a result, teammates learn to count on each other, to help and support each other. The strength of George Mason's Forensics Team is definitely its camaraderie."

The gift from Manchester and Emory was announced at a reunion event marking 50 years of the forensics program at George Mason, which was attended by more than 140 alumni who traveled from 16 states and overseas.

"I feel so incredibly blessed to have experienced a career path and location for my work that was so fulfilling," Manchester said.