Student News & Events

WUDL Students Defend Middle School Nationals Title! Upper Left: National Champions Margaret and Susie from BASIS DC, defending their National Title from last year’s champs, Sitara and Violet . On Right: BASIS DC’s Greta and Alex, who finished as Semi-Finalists “It was really an equity issue honestly.”  Boston Debate League Assistant Program Director Roger Nix, […]

WUDL Students Debate NATO at UK Embassy From left: Dame Karen Pierce, Lady of Roxburgh and UK Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Washington Urban Debate students after the final round. Judge a few debate rounds, and you’ll always notice that debaters are a bit ahead of the curve. We debated infrastructure a decade before

First WUDL Alumni Competes at NDT (College Nationals) Emmanuel Makinde (left) and Vikram Saigal at the NDT 2023 A couple of weekends ago, I had the honor of participating in the National Debate Tournament. The tournament was intense, challenging, but most importantly, exciting and incredibly rewarding to participate in an event that I have spent

WUDL Sets Reaches New Competitive Heights in Dallas at Urban Debate National Championship Washington Urban Debate at Nationals in 2023: Joey, Liv, David, Danielle, Jener, Akesh, and Eric. After three years, we finally got to Dallas!  The Urban Debate National Championship (UDNC), hosted by Southern Methodist University, was originally scheduled for May 2020. As you

WUDL Celebrates Season Long Awards 2023 Sweepstakes Cup Champions BASIS DC: Coach Yigletu with Caspar, Daniella, Jenny, Saron, Greta, Sitara, Violet, Margaret, and Victoria We are so excited to share the award winners for our season-long awards, recognizing excellence, hard work, and growth across the entire season:  WUDL Sweepstakes Cup: BASIS DC High School Team

WUDL End of Year Tournament Full of Growth, Excellence It was a full house as we awaited the awards ceremony at Capital City PCS in their beautiful theater At the end of the year, we host a District tournament where we give away awards to celebrate year long excellence. That will be covered in our

WUDL Celebrates 2023 National Qualifiers Mallia, Balk, Villaflor, and Birnstad qualified to represent WUDL at the UDNC in 2023. All went to Capital City together in Middle School and have been members of the Travel Team for 3+ years WUDL is an education first organization. The research behind Urban Debate shows that participation, not wins

Phelps High School Hosts Debate Tournament Originally Scheduled March 2020 Phelps High School has a huge central atrium with lots of natural light through the middle of the school. We filled it with debaters “The most energy and joy I’ve experienced in a good bit” — WUDL volunteer judge from this weekend’s tournament Coach Komlo

Banneker Novices Tie WUDL Record with Semi-Final Finish at Pennsbury Falcon Invitational Students from Banneker, BASIS DC, Capital City, Cardozo, CMIT North, DuVal, Flowers, Hardy, Phelps, and Stuart Hobson attended the 2023 Pennsbury Falcon Invitational It was 13 degrees after the wind chill on Friday, but thankfully, we were able to gather Capital City’s warm

WUDL Winter Classic Kicks Off National Qualifiers WUDL Alumni Paris Smalley (rear) hands out trophies during the awards cerremony This might sound familiar from our last post:  A week after our second road trip in 32 months, we hosted the WUDL Winter Classic, the first regular season tournament of 2023 and kicked off our National