MNUDL: Powered by Student Leadership Teams
Behind every successful tournament, engaging topic, and experience that resonates with you stands our Student Leadership Teams, the authentic voices keeping our league grounded in what matters to real students.
Our Student Leadership Teams, including for East African Debate and Policy Debate, are made up of your peers. They’ve weathered the same competitive pressures, navigated the same challenges, and pulled the same late-night prep sessions you have. What makes them special is that they’ve stepped up to ensure student perspectives drive our league’s decisions, not just adult assumptions about what young debaters want or need.
Learn more about their experiences and accomplishments from the past season below. Inspired to join them? Reach out to let us know you’re interested in joining next year’s Student Leadership Team.
Meet Our East African Debate Student Leadership Team
Ayan
Hi, my name is Ayan.
I’m proud to serve as the East African Debate Student Leadership Team President for 2026.
I first joined debate in my freshman year, and ever since then it’s been a passion that’s shaped my voice, confidence and leadership skills.
I plan to continue debating all through my senior year. I’m excited to continue to grow and to help others do the same.
Hamdi
My name is Hamdi. I am 15 years old and attend Heritage Stem Academy. I am a member of the Student Leadership Team which consists of one representative from each high school, who work together to improve and enhance the quality of East African Debate.
East African Debate involves students discussing a variety of topics all centered arounds perspectives from the East African community. Being a part of this program has taught me teamwork as well as how to handle both wins and losses with sportsmanship. It has also helped me learn to approach ideas from different points of view and defend my opinions with confidence.
I genuinely enjoy talking to people, getting to know them and engaging in meaningful conversations. East African Debate has been a great way for me to connect with others, understanding their perspectives and seeing how they defend their ideas. It’s an experience that has broadened my thinking and helped me grow in so many ways.
Marwaa
My name is Marwaa, and I had the opportunity to serve on the East African Debate Student Leadership Team this year. Looking back, I’m really proud of everything we accomplished together.
Being part of the SLT meant we had real input into making East African Debate better for everyone. Whether it was planning workshops, helping debaters feel welcome, or brainstorming ways to make tournaments more exciting, it felt like our voices mattered.
I’m proud of the work we did this year, and I’m excited to see how the East African Debate keeps growing in the future.
Salman
My name is Salman. I started debating my junior year and continued into my senior year of high school. My biggest accomplishment of the year was winning the East African Debate Championship with my partner Ayan, as well as becoming the East African Debate Student Leadership Team.
I joined the debate because I love having discussions around all sorts of topics. Debates give me an outlet to have meaningful discussions around interesting and important topics.
Debate has also helped me become a better critical thinker which I will continue to use in the classroom as I transition into college.
Meet our High School Policy Student Leadership Team
Ani
Hi! I’m Ani, a senior at Roosevelt High School and captain for the Roosevelt Policy Debate Team. While I mainly focus on policy debate, I have done Spanish and financial literacy debate in the past. Debate introduced me to a deep love of research and passion for social justice and issues such as feminism and settler colonialism. It has also been a really empowering experience for me, as my team worked to overcome coaching and resource issues during my four years in the policy debate program to be able to compete at the varsity level. The aforementioned resource and coaching disparities present at Roosevelt inspired me to become a leader for my team and the debate community as a whole, and that is why I am on the Student Leadership Team. I want to make high-level debate more accessible to students across the Twin Cities. For that reason, my favorite Student Leadership Team project has been the shared evidence file that we have made accessible to all MNUDL teams.
Evelyn
Hi, my name is Evelyn and I’m one of the SLT members for the 2024-2025 school year. I’ve been in debate for 4 years and I’m a senior at Thomas Edison. I joined SLT because I’m very invested in the debate community, specifically the MNUDL. I believe that the MNUDL does amazing things but I also believe that there are some areas where we are lacking, which is what the SLT is for. The SLT has given me the opportunity to voice my opinions and create actual changes within the community.
Haven
My name is Haven. I am currently a junior at Washburn high school, where I have been debating for three years. In addition to competing, I’ve coached debate for the last 2 years at Justice Page, and I’ve been a member of the student leadership team for 2 years. During my time on the SLT, I have planned activities and themes for different tournaments, as well as working on a shared evidence drive available to everyone. Being a part of the leadership team has helped to give me a place to think through ways to make debate better, and to enact change.
Sofia
Hi, I’m Sofia and I’ve been on the Student Leadership Team for two years now! I am from the Minneapolis South High debate team and I originally joined because I wanted to give back to the MNUDL after being a part of the wonderful community of debaters, coaches and UDL staff! I had some ideas for ways to foster community and some wishes about how I wanted to make the UDL better from the bottom up: starting with amplifying student voices! My favorite moment this season with the SLT has to be when four of us (and melekh) got together and filmed a demo debate for the middle schoolers, lots of funny moments and a great way to support debaters who are new to the activity! I also loved participating in creating a UDL student resource drive to reduce unequal access to resources across schools (in AND out of the UDL). Being on the SLT has been such an important part of my debater career in the UDL because of the community I’ve gained + help support!
Yao
Hi my name is Yao Buchl, and I am a Senior at Highland Park Senior High School. I’ve been part of the policy debate community for the last 7 years. I joined the SLT in order to work to improve debate and make it more accessible and enjoyable for other students. In the SLT, I’ve gotten to better connect with students from the UDL in order to improve debate. I think my favorite memory from the season was not only competing against other members of the SLT, but also recording the middle school demo debate. Debate has given me lasting friendships and fostered an amazing community!
Max
My name is Max Ulven, and I’m currently a senior at Central High School. I started debating my 9th grade year and it really helped me grow into the person I am today! The debate team was the first place I really felt at home in high school and the community was extremely welcoming to me. Because of that, I’ve always wanted to pay that forward and ensure that others can experience that. In my competitive debating, I was the State Champion and got to the semi-finals of the Urban Debate National Championship, but outside of that one of the best parts of my life on Central’s team is helping the novices and recruiting new kids!
I joined the Student Leadership team this year in hopes to help the community and UDL as a whole, and have been trying to work towards that goal this year. If I had to describe the Student Leadership Team, I’d say it’s a group whose goal is to make debate more inclusive, equitable, and accessible for all. I really believe, despite being someone who immensely enjoys the competitive aspects of it, that debate is more than just a competition—it’s a tool for empowerment, advocacy, and community-building, and I think that the team encompasses that perfectly.
The project I enjoyed working on the most was the community evidence drive. One of our goals is to reduce resource disparities across schools. We realize that not every team in the league has access to the same amount of coaching, evidence, or funding, which can create an uneven playing field. In order to remedy this, this year we set out to help distribute an evidence drive of ‘backfiles’ (evidence that can be used across topics) that coaches had put together, while producing a set of evidence and files about this year’s topic to help teams moving from novice to JV.
While I was only on the team this year, I really hope that the members next year will try to channel these past projects and create their own ideas to improve the UDL and help keep it the wonderful place it’s been to all of us.
Lillie
My name is Lillie. I’m a senior from Tartan High School and I’ve been a member of the Student Leadership Team for two years. In my time with Tartan I’ve seen the program grow considerably. When I joined we were a new team of all Novices but in that time, I’ve been to not only make it to Varsity, but compete at the State tournament, qualify for the break round at the Urban Debate National Championship as well as compete in Mayors Debate Challenges.
As the Social Media Manager I got to connect with a lot of great community members to collaborate on and further causes that were important to me and my peers. It’s important to me that the work I do continues to make debate accessible for the most marginalized of students, and I’m proud of the progress I was able to make in my time with the Student Leadership Team by leveraging my voice.
