Before the 2023 revitalization, our club president George Dumitru was an event manager for Guelph’s Medical Ethics Society and our vice-president Will Cheng was the president of Guelph’s Biotech Club. The story of the U of G’s Debate Club’s resurgence stems from their joining forces to brainstorm a new club for debate which had not existed at the time. However, when they went to the CSA to pitch the creation of the Debate Club, they found out that a Debate Society had already existed and was inactive due to COVID-19 disbanding the past executive team.

Since George was newly elected as the president of the Medical Ethics Society, he decided to merge it with this vision of a new Debate Club to be able to discuss broader subjects and connect with more Guelph students across campus. Much of the 2023-24 executive team is made up of former Medical Ethics Society executives who were also interested in shifting the club to something more inclusive. The U of G Debate Club’s executive team takes pride in this stem background, as it illustrates the importance of building communication and critical thinking skills for all types of students regardless of their majors and interests. 

There have always been students who have desired to develop and express their intellectual capabilities despite the University of Guelph’s founding as an agricultural school. Our mission as a club is to spotlight these Guelph students in every academic background along with promoting the idea that U of G is more than simply an agricultural or veterinary school. We strive to highlight the importance of diversity and the practicality of speech to each of these voices. We hope to build a solid foundation to honour our extensive history and leave a stable system for future executive teams to continue and improve.