Ethan Hoddes, 0T7
"The skills that you learn in debating apply to in-class discussions and especially to essay writing."
SEPTEMBER 2007 - Be it resolved that Ethan Hoddes is the best secretary the Hart House Debates Committee has ever had.
Hoddes would politely decline to argue that particular point, but there's no denying that the committee had an impressive year under his leadership. In 2006-07, with Hoddes at the head of the debates committee, Hart House welcomed such guests as Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, journalist Andrew Coyne, former Ontario premier David Peterson, Toronto Mayor David Miller, and writer Christopher Hitchens to do verbal battle on the issues of the day.
Hoddes wasn't there just to hobknob with the intelligentsia, however; it was to indulge his competitive streak. "I guess I'm just very competitive," he says. "I don't get too hung up on things like winning the tournament, but I enjoy going into a round, and basically standing up and trying to outsmart someone. It's a very challenging and interesting experience."
Still, getting to have lunch and dinner with author and provocateur Christopher Hitchens when he came to Hart House was a highlight. "He was a nice guy," Hoddes says, adding that they talked at length about the federal Liberal leadership race that was then on, the resignation of U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — "he definitely felt that was a good thing," says Hoddes — and the works of political philosopher Thomas Paine.
As a history major, Hoddes found his training in formal argument helpful for course work. "It's helpful in terms of just learning how to formulate an argument. The skills that you learn in debating, to a degree, cross-apply both to in-class discussions and especially to essay writing."
Having graduated from Trinity in June 2007, Hoddes is taking a year off to work before deciding between grad school or teachers' college, where he'd study to become a history teacher. "I haven't really decided yet," he says. That debate, it seems, is yet to come.
– Graham F. Scott
