Cheynem wrote:Maybe I'm in the minority here, but after BOTH national tournaments, even the one-day ICT, I am not in the mood to play another tournament (in fact, I have always consistently enjoyed how ICT the last two years was one day, in terms of travel). I love the idea of this and the attempt to make costs lower by combining it with an existing national event, but I would prefer to see it as an early summer tournament.
I am strongly opposed to any future "Bee" components.
Blanford's Fringe-fingered Lizard wrote:If we can make ICT, then we would certainly play this too.
DumbJaques wrote:I think Matt's plan to target history departments in general is an excellent one, and a great potential means of expanding college quizbowl.
After ICT is fine with me, and I agree with what others are saying that the 20/20 or 20/0 format is infinitely preferable to the four-quarters one, which I think would just be difficult to do with high level college material.
I feel even more strongly that there should be a very clear shift in the distribution from "60% American, 40% everything else" or thereabouts. For one thing, while not tremendously far off from the focus of high school history curriculum in many states, that distribution does not remotely represent the breakdown of either students or curriculum in college history departments. I think this is doubly important if you guys are specifically targeting history clubs at non-quizbowl schools - well over 50% of the history students at most schools are going to be studying something that isn't just "American history," and there are likely to be way more academic clubs connected to "any other type of history" than there connected to just American material.
Further, like any realm of quizbowl, the people who end up doing this won't be just history majors, they'll be people from all departments who have an interest in history. Again, at the university level, I think it's much more likely people will have connections every other area of history combined than to American history. Consider that you've got a strong grounding in classical history from any classics major as well as some philosophy and many general humanities majors. You've got some definite background in European history for many literature or philosophy majors. Nearly every GVPT major I know has taken a number of classes on Middle Eastern history, and has probably also taken some combination of African/South American/Asian history courses. A liberal arts school will probably include 2-4 courses on world/european/comparative history combined for every one American history course in its base curriculum.
Basically, the ratio in college history departments is 60-40 (or more) the other way around, so I strongly discourage using the existing high school distribution. It's also worth noting that college professors (and students), especially those who study once-marginalized areas, love to get righteously pissed off when certain things are underrepresented. Do not for a moment mistake me for one of these "let's have gender/culture/whatever quotas in quizbowl" people, but I guarantee that if I took the head of my history department's China/Japan to a History Bowl for universities and 60% of the stuff was about America, she would be firing off incensed emails to whoever would listen for the next week. Since she would happen to have a point in such a case, I'm suggesting a pretty drastic retooling of the distribution to more closely mirror what you're actually looking at with the college level.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:Here's a question: should this be open to professors as well as undergrads and grad students? That might make for some interesting teams, and I would lean in favor of this, unless there are strong objections.
The National History Bowl is pleased to announce that it is planning on holding a National Championship for college students in the upcoming school year,
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote: Here's a question: should this be open to professors as well as undergrads and grad students?
RyuAqua wrote:The National History Bowl is pleased to announce that it is planning on holding a National Championship for college students in the upcoming school year,nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote: Here's a question: should this be open to professors as well as undergrads and grad students?
These two aims don't match up at all and it's a ludicrous suggestion that professors should play this event if it's meant to be a legitimate competition for college students.
35% US
30% Europe
20% Rest of Modern
15% Ancient
Here's a question: should this be open to professors as well as undergrads and grad students?
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:Well, the idea here would be to have different divisions, if profs were to get involved. Personally, I think most serious history grad students who play qb would crush the average prof, but I'm fine with leaving professors off altogether this year, or maybe have them play in their own division? I think if it were marketed correctly, at least ten universities would be interested in sending profs to play it, but I'd be fine with keeping such a division totally separate or waiting til next year. In any case, it's not a high priority. Here's another thought for down the road: eventually people are going to get older and lose university affiliations. In addition to having undergrad and grad divisions (Matt J.'s intimidation argument might also be valid here if both were completely mixed together), and a separate division for university faculties, maybe it would be fun to have a division for alumni, based on where people did their undergrad work? Or an open based on state residence? Again, this might not have wide appeal just yet, but over time it could grow, though this is something for 2013 at earliest. I think the idea of allowing people to match up on their own (a la Chicago History Doubles) wouldn't work for a national championship, but if there were some limiting criteria it could fly. Don't mean to get ahead of things here, but curious to see if people might want a way to stay in the game later. Maybe even an open Nationals based on state or undergrad affiliation could in future years be combined with Jersey Shore Open?
Hey, just wondering if people would prefer to have regular 15-point powers, or two-stage superpowers, for the tossups here. Looks like it will be 20/20 in any case.
I still think having a situation where U.S. is almost double "rest of modern" runs into many of the same problems I speculated on before. It's not reflective of history curriculum at most universities, not reflective of how student knowledge/interest would be distributed, and for whatever it's worth not reflective of the standard collegiate quizbowl distribution. You've also got a situation where "every non-western country" and "Rome, Greece, ancient near-east" are looking at mostly identical distributions, which in my opinion isn't a great idea either.
I guess I'm curious as to why the single greatest slice here (between U.S., Euro, and World) has to be given to U.S. history - I think the argument for equalizing them is infinitely more defensible, and less likely to provoke backlash. On a personal note, as someone who's written and edited a lot of history questions, I'd think that mining U.S. history for answers with a lion's share of the frequency would get kind of stale pretty quickly. You're just bound to get into a situation where you're asking about minor candidates from 19th century elections on the one hand and the most famous figures from African/Asian/whatever history on the other. It's not at all the kind of thing that makes for balanced or rewarding gameplay.
Matt Weiner wrote:I am also proposing that the divisions at the tournament be:
Overall (all students eligible)
Division I (highest-finishing team without any history grad students)
Undergraduate (same as the NAQT or ACF undergraduate rules, basically)
with all teams playing in one field but the highest-finishing teams in the subsidiary divisions playing finals/getting trophies as they do with, eg, the NAQT Undergraduate title now. The names are subject to revision, of course.
In most good quizbowl formats, American history is 25% of the history distribution. Nobody has ever complained about this. Is an extra 10% of US history really going to cause the world to end? Don't get me wrong: I would prefer to see the distribution reflect that of ACF, as I believe that it is the finest distribution known to man, but I think this is an extremely hyperbolic crusade on your part.
Awehrman wrote: then I suggest that instead of piggybacking with the ICT, that you instead piggyback or join up with the American Historical Association. Their annual meeting hosts thousands of historians and I think there might be room for something like this to run during, before, or after the conference.
Awehrman wrote:I have lots of thoughts on this and they are divided a bit between my past as a quizbowl player and my present as a history professor. As a quizbowl player, especially as an undergraduate, I would have loved something like this, and it seems to be well-intentioned. But as a historian, I'm a little leery of some of the ideas being floated around.
At the basic level having a history championship at the ICT seems great. It will be perhaps a bit more official than the summer history tournaments. Complications, I think, arise when the history bowl begins contacting history departments. This will take quite a long time, since history departments aren't exactly jumping at the chance to spend money to try new things that are not directly related to tenure or job placement.
If you are really more interested in this as a history championship than a quizbowl championship with a focus on history, then I suggest that instead of piggybacking with the ICT, that you instead piggyback or join up with the American Historical Association. Their annual meeting hosts thousands of historians and I think there might be room for something like this to run during, before, or after the conference. The annual meeting is held over the first weekend in January during most schools' winter break. ICT in April falls at a fairly bad time for graduate students who must turn in major projects around that time. You might also consider the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting. I think it would be easier to bring quizbowl to the historians rather than the other way around. I know that Eta Sigma Phi, the honorary society for classics, runs some sort of quizbowl-like competition at their annual convention.
Awehrman wrote:What I think might cause you some trouble, however, is that as it stands, there are no historians writing or editing the questions. While I know that Matt, Jerry, and company will do a fine job, I would guess that to come fully on board history departments would like to see contributions by historians (grad students, faculty, perhaps undergrad history majors) and editing by people in the field. I don't think it matters that much for this first event, but I think it will matter more if the event grows larger.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:Option B
Tournament takes place at a Chicago area university that is accessible by the el. Teams would have to leave the hotel no later than 8:15. Prelim meeting (very brief) at 9:15, rounds start at 9:30. Teams are guaranteed ten matches. Cost totals $205 per team, plus, reckon with about $8 per person for public transit if you won't have car access.
Plan Rubber wrote:There's a Blue Line stop right next to the hotel, isn't there?
Ringil wrote:I would prefer option 1 as it gives us more games and is less of a hassle.
DumbJaques wrote:Yeah, Susan's got the order of rail transportation convenience spot on here. It's not absurdly impossible or anything to get to Chicago from O'Hare and then back again (in this scenario I'm assuming that most people are flying into ORD, since that's where the tournament is happening), but it's definitely a hike. My usual route is to take the blue line all the way downtown and hop on the Metra - I would not want to do that in the morning, play a full tournament, and then do it again in the evening to get back to my hotel. Given the logistics for this year, I'd say Chicago should probably be a last resort.
Northwestern's easier but still kind of annoying to get to, and it does take a while (you're doing a similar downtown-back out again route, just taking the purple line for the second leg of the trip). It's an option that, while perhaps not ideal, wouldn't be too bad (particularly if there was something of a coordinated shuttle effort).
UIC just requires you ride downtown, so yeah, I vote for that if possible. If I'm not sleep-deprived and this tournament is in fact running on Sunday, you could also look into various local high schools as potential hosts. They presumably don't have a lot of stuff going on Sunday, unless like they're like my high school and are constantly taken over by multiple denominations of Asian Christianity.
DumbJaques wrote:Yeah, Susan's got the order of rail transportation convenience spot on here. It's not absurdly impossible or anything to get to Chicago from O'Hare and then back again (in this scenario I'm assuming that most people are flying into ORD, since that's where the tournament is happening), but it's definitely a hike. My usual route is to take the blue line all the way downtown and hop on the Metra - I would not want to do that in the morning, play a full tournament, and then do it again in the evening to get back to my hotel. Given the logistics for this year, I'd say Chicago should probably be a last resort.
Northwestern's easier but still kind of annoying to get to, and it does take a while (you're doing a similar downtown-back out again route, just taking the purple line for the second leg of the trip). It's an option that, while perhaps not ideal, wouldn't be too bad (particularly if there was something of a coordinated shuttle effort).
UIC just requires you ride downtown, so yeah, I vote for that if possible. If I'm not sleep-deprived and this tournament is in fact running on Sunday, you could also look into various local high schools as potential hosts. They presumably don't have a lot of stuff going on Sunday, unless like they're like my high school and are constantly taken over by multiple denominations of Asian Christianity.
nationalhistorybeeandbowl wrote:...a short (say, 20 minute) lunch break? ...
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