Princeton WUDC 1989

Winner: Sydney


Finalists: Hart House Toronto
Best Speaker: John Gastil (Swarthomre)
Princeton hosted the 1989 Worlds. Aaron Blumenfeld and company ran the event, which was won by the previous year’s hosts, Sydney, Andrew Bell and Warren Lee. Second place was won by Justin MacGregor and Dave Conklin of the University of Toronto.

About 110 teams attended. That year saw a marked increase in international participation. Singapore and Greece attended; the Soviet Union sent observers and competed the next year at Glasgow. There were a lot of prizes, including, for the first time, recognition for debaters for whom English was a second language.

 The format was 10 preliminary rounds with teams of two and two teams per debate. “This tournament will run on time,” debaters were told at every meeting, long after they were tired of hearing it, but it worked. While not all Worlds have featured a prepared topic, at Princeton it was “Socialism has failed.” One may recall that 1989 was quite a year for socialism…but this was only January. How could they have known?

There were divisions for both comic and serious public speeches, but the idea of having to stand up and know that you were expected to be funny was more than many cared to deal with. The competition offered a number of unusual ideas, including object speaking; a debater was handed an object, and then had to build a speech around the object.



This History of the World Debating Championships comes in 3 parts. From 1976 to 1990 it is taken almost word for word from the 1991 Toronto WUDC Tournament booklet. Who wrote it isn't known but it was provided by Randal Horobik. At the start of the section on Worlds in 1981 is an extract from an e-mail by Clark McGinn, Convenor of Debates, GU Union 1980 -81 and 1981 and Convenor of the First World Debating Competition, 1981. The history since 1991 has been compiled initially by Colm Flynn and edited by many contributors to Wikipedia. Unfortunately Wikipedia deleted the history due to copyright concerns so we are back here. Hopefully anyone who contributed to the Wiki article before it was deleted will be happy to see their work preserved here.

Princeton WUDC 1989 Bid

Here is the Bid to host Worlds in 1989 as submitted by Princeton.

Worlds Council Minutes 1989

Here are the World's council minutes from the meeting held in Princeton in 1989

Princeton WUDC 1989 More advance info

Princeton 89 Official tab

Here is the offiial tab Princeton distributed after the tournament.

Princeton WUDC 1989 Advance info

Here is some advance info sent out about the 1989 World Debating Championships held in Princeton.

Princeton WUDC 1989 Results

XV Annual World Universities Debating Championships


Top Teams
Finalists
New South Wales A Hooke & Philips
Oxford Union A Black & Clayton

Semi-Finalists
Harvard Law A Cruz & Panton
Oxford Graduate Debating Society A Angstreich & Kalir

Quarter-Finalists
Bristol A Duncan & Wilkins
Middle Temple A Halkerston & Savage
Queensland B Harrison & Murray
York A Rabie & Ciufo

Octo-Finalists
Cambridge A Sheldon & Pitel
Concordia A Bielby & Giles
Fordham A Carolan & Dunnigan
Glasgow A Harper & McGrath
Guelph A Scala & Guirguis
New South Wales B Richardson & Kalowski
Amos J. Peaslee Debating Society A Mallory & Potischman
Yale A Marcus & Harrington

Double Octo-Finalists
Australian National University A Cummins & Darke
Australian National University B Hughes & Kelly
Glasgow B MacLean & Hume
Hart House A Cass & Clark
Hart House B Cesario & D'Abramo
Middle Temple B Davey & Tolaney
McGill A Butts & Price
Monash A Richards & Dunlop
Nanyang B Jenardhanan & Bin
New York University A Levitan & Kenny
Oxford Union C Meldal-Johnsen & Willimanson
University of Technology, Sydney A Metcalfe & Grenier
Western Australia A Porter & Wiltshire
Western Ontario A Orr & Batner
Western Ontario B Ghosemajumder & Halladay
York B Balasabrumanian & Musso

 
ESL FINALISTS


In the final round between Deree College Nanyang Technological College of Greece of Singapore

The winners on a 3 – 2 decision were
Nanyang B  Chitra Jenardharan  and Teo Kwee Bin