28 February 2022
Bilbao Campus
From 17 to 19 February 2022, the 15th edition of the San Francisco Javier Academic Debating League, organised by the network of Jesuit Universities of Spain (UNIJES), was held at the Sagrada Familia University Centre in Úbeda, Jaén. In this edition, the Deusto university students won the competition and also won other prizes.
This year, the working team made up of the heads of each of the university centres wanted to join in the celebration of the Ignatian Year "Ignatius500", focusing the theme of the debate on the role of the UNIJES network itself in the refugee crisis. The question for discussion was: "Are UNIJES centres responding adequately to the refugee crisis within the framework of their university mission and the Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus?”
In the competition, in which Deusto Business School students Iván Carballo, Ainhoa Otegi and Sandra Monsalve took part, a total of 77 students competed, organised into 13 interdisciplinary teams that form part of the debate clubs of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Universitat Ramón Llull, Centro Universitario Sagrada Familia, Colegio Mayor Deusto and Universidad de Deusto.
Using a Swiss system of alternating teams, the students defended their positions "for" and "against" before a team of 13 people in charge of the participating centres, who assessed the students' research, argumentation, presentation and conclusion skills.
The Deusto 1 team (Aritz Castro, Alberto Ramírez, Ane Marquínez, Alejandra Meseguer and Leire Pérez) won the competition in a final debate against the Deusto 4 team (Iñaki Fernández, Hugo Pascual, Samuel Miñambres, Jorge Gutiérrez, Nerea García and Jaime Sanmartín), runner-up in the competition. In addition, the Deusto 2 team (Sandra Monsalve, Isabel Martínez, Ainhoa Otegui, Aitor Cordero and Ane Martín) was awarded the prize for "best research work".
The Deusto Debate Club thus reinforces its vocation to jointly train students from different disciplines in skills such as leadership and teamwork, oral and written communication, and lifelong, autonomous and critical learning.
