A message from Amy Kishek on behalf of the EDS

A Love Letter to the EDS


I started debating in my first year at the University of Ottawa. It was the one club that I was the most excited about joining. We didn’t have any extracirriculars at my high school other than sports and a severely underfunded band and choir. I had heard about the English Debating Society before even accepting my admissions offer to uOttawa as the EDS was prominently displayed on the homepage of the University for having won Worlds that year. Wow. Now that sounded like a great experience and something I thought I could really be good at.

At my first EDS meeting we were taught some debating basics, and then given a resolution with which to try our hand. The resolution was (recall this was in 2006), This House Believes that Israel’s response to Hezbollah was measured. Amazed at the audacity of this resolution, I voiced my reaction: “Wow. As a Palestinian, I do not want to debate either side of that!” Sure enough the senior members of the club enlisted me to debate the side of the Israeli government to my complete shock.

Now I can debate nearly any side of any argument (or so I I’d like to thing), with the complete confidence of my persuasiveness (more or less).

In an academic institution debate, the ability to critical analyze, as well as to take a position, is crucial. Academics engage in debate throughout their entire careers from writing undergraduate paper, defending a master’s thesis, to applying for research grants, to ultimately defending one’s research. Fields like philosophy, sociology, political science, and even evolutionary science are centered on academic debate. As a student, debating a range of topics and positions, in addition to developing debate skills, has been crucial to my success in essay writing, seminar presentations, and certainly on my general outlook to my academic discipline.

As a student leader and activist, these skills and experiences have gone even further.

Debate has been one of, if not the (don’t get offended fellow SFUO lovers!), most meaningful experiences of my time here at the University of Ottawa. Having attended the World Debating Championship on behalf of uOttawa in both 2008 and 2009, I have been immersed in the debating experience through and through, and have been enriched greatly by it, in ways that may be difficult to explain.

The dedication and hard work debaters put into mastering their craft is impressive by any standard. In order to train for Worlds I attended a debate tournament every weekend for 5 weekends in a row in the Fall semester of 2007 and 2008. These are not mini-vacations. They are grueling challenges wherein you debate 6 rounds in two days, and after each round your ego gets a terrible beating. We practice two times a week as a club, and individually study and prepare cases on a regular and frequent basis. It’s not easy to become a strong debater, but it’s certainly worthwhile.

Now, why should you fund my debating habit (because yes, it is addictive!)?

Debate is accessible to anyone and everyone regardless of skill level, and is in fact a useful skill or tool to being successful in your academic studies. In this sense, any member of the University of Ottawa community can be a member.

Debate takes a lot of resources. In addition to booking 4+ rooms a week on campus, debate does not work if you never compete, not to mention learning to compete against people with different debate styles and backgrounds in the States and overseas, or even in other parts of Canada. In light of this, there is no fundraising activity that could pay for all of this! What you may not know is that each debater pays $50 to attend each tournament, and can only attend two tournaments a semester using EDS funding. This is very prohibitive to many of our members, and certainly many potential members. Moreover it’s necessary to note that the EDS does receive funding from the University, and that if students fund the EDS through a levy, EDS funding can be stable (no more begging the Faculty of Social Science to send us to Worlds), and the money the Faculties previously provided can go back to students and other activities.

Ultimately debate is a practice that is inherently competitive. Without the experiences of rigorous competition it is difficult to learn to debate. Moreover, success in debating is not simply enriching and necessary to us as an individual member of the EDS and of the University of Ottawa, but it’s necessary for the community as a whole. Some of the greatest universities have the greatest debate clubs fostering tomorrow’s leaders. Benazir Bhutto competed on the Oxford debate team, for example, and in Canada Michael Ignatief and Bob Rae were debate partners at the University of Toronto.

Lastly, it’s important to recognize what debate does in terms of providing a culture of debate on campus. What is a culture of debate? It’s exhibited in such things as the EDS debate sponsored by the SFUO on the Drop Fees campaign, in the EDS debates during Green Weeks. On other campuses the debate clubs publicly debate a range of issues and bring in a variety of speakers in order further this culture of debate. Recently Carleton hosted Paul Dewar and debated the question of accountability regarding Afghan detainees. To those of you who have been frustrated by the SFUO’s stances on some issues, or share the sentiment that there isn’t room for debate in campus politics, I think supporting the EDS is one of the best things you can do.

I’d like to leave you with one final thing. This fall the EDS celebrated it’s 130th year reunion by hosting a debate during homecoming featuring esteemed alumni Senator Hugh Segal (Conservative), Member of Parliament Mauril Belanger (Liberal), Anne McGrath (NDP, Jack Layton’s Chief of Staff) and Erik Estaugh (World Champion 2005).

Here’s a video from that debate.

http://www.homecoming.uottawa.ca/videos.html

Amy Kishek
Undergraduate Representative, Board of Governors,
University of Ottawa

President,
Equal Voice: National Capital Youth Chapter

Vice-President,
English Debating Society, 2007-2008

EDS Member 2006-2010