Hoyas Bring Home Victory at the First Qatar Universities Debate League of the Season

The Georgetown Debating Union (GDU) took home the victory at the first Qatar Universities Debate League (QUDL) for the 2019-2020 season, which saw 24 teams from nine universities take part in the competition hosted by Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q). Led by students Mudassar Raza Shakir, GDU president, and Khansa Maria, GDU Team Captain, GU-Q’s student debate champions also brought home wins for Best Team, Best Speaker, and Best Institution.

The QUDL, which follows a league system in British parliamentary format, determines the winner by aggregating the debate points earned by the top two teams from each university. Mudassar gives credit to the skills of the team’s new first-year members for clinching the win. “We could not have achieved the best institution award without two rising stars amongst the freshmen – Muhammad Saad Ullah and Aleksandr Chirgun, who helped accumulate six points to push us over.”

This year’s Debating Union saw its membership grow with the new year, and now numbers 20 Hoyas, many of them new to the club. “We sent six teams of two students each, with 12 competitors in total,” explained Khansa, adding that two additional students took part as registered judges, and another student served as an observer.

New members include Noor Aloukati, Hajer Ouzzani, Lina Darwaish, Bothaina Namos, Prajwal Bikram Bista, Nikhil Sangroula, Taha Kaleem Bukhari, Khushboo Shah, Abhijeet Pant, Abdullah Nazeer and Yasmina El Argoubi. “With a talented group of people such as this, you can be sure that the future is bright,” noted Mudassar.

Other participating Qatar Foundation universities included Northwestern University in Qatar, Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Texas A&M University Qatar, Qatar University, College of the North Atlantic, and the Academic Bridge Program.

The next competition, the second of four for the year,  will be held on October 26th, and will be the final match of the semester.