Jesse Jackson, a civil rights and political activist, once said that ‘deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy’. And there certainly are some souls being stirred in the CEU Debate Society, which gathers every Wednesday at 19:00 sharp, despite exams, work obligations or other trivial obstacles.The Society has been around for merely a year, but it attracts an increasing number of devoted audience and participants, including PhD students and graduates of CEU, and also of the Corvinus University of Budapest.
The enthusiasm of the Society members has recently resulted in a tremendous success: CEU is ranked 162nd (out of 500!) in the World University Debate Rankings (http://rankings.idebate.org/), thanks to the talent and efforts which have been put by students and their coaches within international tournaments in the past year. In 2011 alone, CEU Debate Society participated with impressive results in Belgrade Open, Vienna IV, Athens Open, Cluj Tournament and at the European Universities Debating Championship, in Galway, Ireland.
Such international events are a great opportunity for young debaters from all over the world to mingle and get acquainted. This is why, along with the enthusiasm of all of the members, CEU Debate Society is organising Budapest Open Debating Tournament in 2012. It will take place between the 2nd and 5th of March and will involve over 100 debaters from Europe and Asia. There will be teams from our neighbouring Austria, Serbia, Romania, Croatia and Slovenia, as well as representatives from the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Portugal, and China among others.
This event will be the first ever hosted by Hungary. Moreover, it is a result of the close cooperation between students from different universities – mainly CEU and Corvinus, but also Budapest Business School and Budapest University of Technology and Economics. So far, there has been a great interest in Budapest Open and it promises to be a successful event with challenging, soul stirring debates that would establish the grounds for organising similar events in the future and make Budapest Open a tradition at CEU. CEU debaters in Galway, Ireland 2011.
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