A team of doctoral students of argumentation studies from the University of Windsor made a big impression at the first International Conference on Debate and Dialogue held May 29 and 30 in Doha, Qatar.

The UWindsor students: Asma Tajuddin, Jiaxing (Jessie) Li, Amanda (Panambi) Morales Vidales, Ronnie Haidar, Jianfeng Wang, and Daniel Mejia Saldarruaga, led a session on “Argumentation in a Political Context.”

“It was truly a proud moment to see our PhD students shine the way they did,” says Pierre Boulos, a learning specialist in the Centre for Teaching and Learning and a senior fellow of the QatarDebate Center, which organized the conference.

The event attracted scholars from around the world for what was billed as an “open platform for discussing specialized academic issues that enrich our knowledge in the fields of debating, dialogue, argumentation, and other related fields such as philosophy, education, linguistics, and Islamic sciences.”

Dr. Boulos notes QatarDebate and the University of Windsor held a signing ceremony to formalize the relationship between the two institutions.

“The organizers and scientific committee were impressed with the depth of knowledge from our students, so much so that a separate session was planned at the conference showcasing UWindsor and the research around political argumentation,” he says.

“While we shared UWindsor and the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric with Qatar, our students have returned with new insights and knowledge from the debate community, and especially the thriving Arab debate community.”

Haidar calls the conference an extraordinary experience.

“It was an excellent platform for us from the argumentation studies program to showcase our important work to a diverse audience on an international stage,” he says. “I am proud to say that our program is a leader in this subject area, and we were able to demonstrate that at the conference. It was a fantastic experience, and I am grateful to have been a part of it.”