Hobart and William Smith Colleges

11 January 2024 HWS Debate Finishes 17th in the World and 3rd in ESL

At the world’s premier collegiate debate competition, HWS debaters finished with one of the team’s best performances ever at the tournament.

Lamia Nur Rahman ’26 and Sandeep Tissaaratchy ’26 finished 17th place in the world at the World University Debating Championship (WUDC). Out of debaters who speak English as a Second Language, the pair finished 3rd in the world. Held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the tournament brought 600 debaters from 150 institutions and 60 countries together to compete on the world stage.

Rahman and Tissaaratchy’s performance marks the fourth year in a row HWS Debate has advanced to the tournament’s elimination rounds.

Both debaters are international students at HWS, who set new records for their home nations as well. Rahman is the first Bangladeshi woman in the world to advance to elimination rounds at both Worlds Schools (the biggest international high school tournament) and WUDC. Tissaaratchy is the second Sri Lankan native to advance to elimination rounds at WUDC in the tournament’s history.

“Despite a storied history of debaters at HWS, no team has placed higher in preliminary rounds than Lamia Nur and Sandeep—a result that is wholly a product of their intelligence, creativity and steadfast determination as both debaters and people,” says Director of HWS Debate Daniel Schonning ’16, who served as an adjudicator at the tournament.

Kayla Powers ’24 and Fairooj Suhita ’27 also competed at the tournament. Powers, the President of HWS Debate, returned to WUDC competition after an impressive 2023 performance in Madrid, Spain. Suhita earned her spot on the Worlds team after reaching the United States University Debate Championship semifinal.

Topics HWS students tackled during WUDC included monetary policy and central banks, the social norms surrounding self-pity, city planning and development, political coalitions, and Indian agricultural policy. In Parliamentary-style debate, students are given 15 minutes to prepare after learning the debate topic.

“Coming from HWS, an institution that trades in a multitude of disciplines and traditions of thought, is invaluable in preparing these students to test their intellectual mettle on the world stage,” Schonning says.

Linh Tran '26, an international student from Vietnam, was invited to serve on the tournament’s tab team. In debate, positions for judges and speakers in each round are decided using tabbing software. The position requires competency in statistics, computer programming and public relations.

HWS Debate also reunited with Sreyan Kanungo ’23, who served a key role in the tournament as an invited adjudicator. Kanungo was also asked to lead training workshops for hundreds of attendees.