Members of Harding’s academic team Josh Duggins and Esther Samuelson placed second and sixth at their regional competition this month.
Academic team, also called quiz bowl team, is a competitive scholastic experience that meets twice a week and goes on three to four competitions every semester. The competitions are comprised of a series of questions that test each student’s knowledge in math, science, literature, art and other subjects.
“The competitions basically involve four people on two teams and they’re read a series of questions,” faculty sponsor Dr. Mark Elrod said. “It’s not like a trivia contest. The spirit of quiz bowl competitions is that you should be able to answer basic questions about your discipline.”
The academic team also hosts competitions for local high school teams to empower the community with knowledge as well.
Most competitions take place in neighboring states, such as Missouri, Tennessee and Louisiana. Elrod and the team said they appreciated the university allowing them to travel and compete at no charge to the students.
Elrod said the students practice by reading art and history books to prepare for competitions.
Another element of the academic team is writing the questions that are asked at competitions. Questions are about a paragraph long and vary in levels of difficulty. Competitions require a number of questions to be submitted in order for the team to compete.
The academic team has been active at Harding since 2004. Last year, the team qualified for nationals. Due to graduation and the international programs, though, Duggins is the only remaining member from last year’s team.
“Because they did so well, the team this year lost their amateur status and Josh basically had to compete at a higher level by himself,” Elrod said.
Elrod said some departments have remained consistently under-represented on the quiz bowl team.
“We’ve never had a music major or an art major,” team Duggins said.”I’m a history major, but I’ve taken on the art questions. At first I didn’t like it, but now I enjoy it and it’s fun.”
If interested in joining the academic team, contact Elrod. The team meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4-6 p.m. in the basement of the Ganus building.
