The Debate Society, established in 1908, is the oldest, friendliest, and most prestigious club on the University of Alberta campus. Debate offers a unique opportunity for students to engage in current affairs, foster their public speaking skills, enhance critical-analytical thinking, and to better understand humanity. Broadly, our mandate is directed at three chief areas:
1. University of Alberta
Involvement
3. Community Outreach
UADS participates and competitively ranks at many local, national and international tournaments such as British Parliamentary Debating Championships, North American Women's Debating Championships and Words University Debating Championships. We are also a member of the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID), a national organization which governs and represents university debating in Canada. We have a history of involvement on campus at the University of Alberta counting Nellie McClung and Joe Clark amongst our alumni. Our club has sent students to give volunteer demonstration debates in classes, has participated in the Student's Union pilot "Think Tank" project, the Feminist University project, and is involved in interdisciplinary events as often as possible. We are proud to continue this effort in the coming 2017-2018 season. Our training programmes are directed at building talented debaters from university students with little or no experience, and we have been incredibly successful in doing so. We welcome anyone who is interested to come and join us at any time in the year regardless of experience. Our club places a heavy emphasis on training, and we are happy to help you improve every week.
