By Julia Brown 

To honor the legacy of William Baker English, founder of the University of Houston Debate program, the Honors College has created The Dr. Bill English Scholars Fund to support a new summer debate workshop for high school students. 

 English began his professional career at the University of Houston, where he was a college professor and debate coach for 14 years. He joined the UH Debate team in 1965 and coached multiple generations of debaters to national success— from 1965 to 1979, under his guidance, UH’s policy debate team record at the National Debate Tournament was second only to that of Harvard University. English stayed close to the UH community even after he departed for a professorship at Baylor University in 1980. His UH ties remained strong until he passed away in December of 2023. 

In August 2024, a new fund was established in his name at the University of Houston. Contributions to The Dr. Bill English Scholars Fund will directly support the Honors Debate Workshop (HDW), a two-week summer camp in which high school students convene on the UH campus and receive a top-tier education in multiple forms of competitive speech and debate. The camp is sponsored and organized by the Honors Debate Team, under the direction of Honors Debate Program Director Rob Glass. 

In 2024, HDW’s inaugural year, the camp hosted 220 young debaters, including 130 local high school students whose costs were subsidized by the Houston Urban Debate League (HUDL). The ultimate goal of The Dr. Bill English Scholars Fund is to establish a sustainable foundation that can ensure continuous yearly support for high school debaters across the nation to attend the summer workshop on UH campus regardless of their financial circumstances.

“Dr. English was a true believer in the transformative potential of policy debate,” Glass says. “I can think of no better way to commemorate Dr. English’s exceptional commitment to the culture of debate at UH.”  

Donate to The Dr. Bill English Scholars Fund at this link: www.thehonorscollege.com/billenglish

Find out more about the UH Honors Debate Team by visiting the team’s website: www.thehonorscollege.com/uhdebate