Hard work, personal stories bring speech team big wins
At the American Forensics Association National Speech Tournament in April, Asha Prabhat ’24, co-captain of the Cornell Speech Team, won top honors for her performance advocating for more research around polycystic ovary syndrome – a condition she was diagnosed with in June 2023.
“After my speech, I had about a dozen different female-presenting individuals come up to me and say things like ‘Those symptoms sound a lot like what I’ve experienced, you’ve inspired me to go to the doctor,’” Prabhat said. “It’s just an incredible thing to hear. Before I performed this speech, I felt alone in my diagnosis because I felt like no one understood. But now, all that has changed.”
This spring was the most successful season in the team’s 40-year history, and Prabhat attributes much of that success to members’ willingness to tell deeply personal stories on stage about gender, ethnicity, racism, their hometowns and their medical conditions.