The Quizbowl Resource Center

cvdwightw wrote:Would you pay, say, $30 more per team at SCT for a lunch and an awards ceremony that substitutes trophies for books?

As a player in the Hentzel-run North region, I don't get books anyway (watch out, future tossups on "shiny plastic," I'm studying my SCT prizes). Frankly, I'd pay a little extra to get books instead of trophies.

evilmonkey wrote:

cvdwightw wrote: I also see this as a potential way to resolve NAQT's current problems with obtaining Sectionals and ICT hosts. Without having to give bids to tournament hosts anymore, that frees up several wildcard spots in each division; even having a team (in each Division with 4 or more teams) from each of Regions 1-15 automatically qualify still leaves at least 17 Division I and 9 non-CC Division II wild card teams. In addition, while CBI claims to provide the RCT questions for free, NAQT provides its questions for a relatively small licensing fee. The lower per-team profit should still result in a higher net profit for the host school due to the incorporation of regular circuit teams showing up en masse in addition to these schools.

Excuse me if I'm being stupid... how would this solve the "host" problem? Like, it seems that the tournaments would still have to be run by SOMEONE, which would still end up being the Quizbowl Club, which would mean their best couldn't play...

The student union would probably be able to provide relatively "untrained" scorekeepers (UCLA was able to train volunteer scorekeepers for high school tournaments within about half an hour), and there should be some ACUI-associated (non-paid-CBI-employee) volunteers to bolster the moderating staff, especially in places like Region 14. Given this, a club's full resources would not necessarily have to be devoted to staffing the tournament.

Ukonvasara wrote:

cvdwightw wrote:Would you pay, say, $30 more per team at SCT for a lunch and an awards ceremony that substitutes trophies for books?

As a player in the Hentzel-run North region, I don't get books anyway (watch out, future tossups on "shiny plastic," I'm studying my SCT prizes). Frankly, I'd pay a little extra to get books instead of trophies.

nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd


(EDIT: More HS tournaments should give out books, though.)

Aaron Kashtan wrote:As for the stiff-necked part, CBI was also extremely resistant to change. They seemed to have this deep-seated conviction that the way they did things was the only proper way, and that customers who complained about their policies could be safely ignored.

The players were never their customers. Their customers were student affairs flunkies who go for banquets with fancy tablecloths and don't care about question quality or gameplay mechanics.

metsfan001 wrote:

Ukonvasara wrote:

cvdwightw wrote:Would you pay, say, $30 more per team at SCT for a lunch and an awards ceremony that substitutes trophies for books?

As a player in the Hentzel-run North region, I don't get books anyway (watch out, future tossups on "shiny plastic," I'm studying my SCT prizes). Frankly, I'd pay a little extra to get books instead of trophies.

nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd

(EDIT: More HS tournaments should give out books, though.)

Clearly you need to come to more University of Minnesota tournaments.

My concerns about NAQT in the ACUI (and yes, they involve Canada):

1. There are only 2 or 3 universities in Canada that are both members of ACUI and have quizbowl teams. From what I recall, College Bowl let non-ACUI schools play, but with financial penalties. Considering that (except for Queen's) I have not heard of a Canadian club getting more than $1000 from their student union over the lifetime of the club, this just seems to be a way to drain our already-limited pockets. This has been a major reason why you didn't have to worry about converting Canadian teams away from College Bowl.

2. Related to the first point, but all the competent hosts in Canada aren't in the ACUI. Toronto, McGill, Ottawa, McMaster, etc. would be good hosts, but they wouldn't be allowed to...?

3. Regions. ACUI has split up Canada, specifically Ontario, with no apparent logic. The idea that York and McMaster, which are 15 minutes apart, need to go to separate tournaments is absurd. Laurentian would need to venture as far as South Dakota rather than a trip to Toronto or Ottawa. I can understand dividing regions based on state boundaries, but when Ontario is sent through a cheese grater, it wrecks the traditional rivalries/familiarities (no offense to Michigan teams, but I think UWO is more familiar with Waterloo or Toronto than teams across the border).

NAQT is a firmly-established institution in Canada the way it is now (it's the only thing that will draw several teams), and I fear that following ACUI rules would kill that.

cvdwightw wrote:

evilmonkey wrote:

cvdwightw wrote: I also see this as a potential way to resolve NAQT's current problems with obtaining Sectionals and ICT hosts. Without having to give bids to tournament hosts anymore, that frees up several wildcard spots in each division; even having a team (in each Division with 4 or more teams) from each of Regions 1-15 automatically qualify still leaves at least 17 Division I and 9 non-CC Division II wild card teams. In addition, while CBI claims to provide the RCT questions for free, NAQT provides its questions for a relatively small licensing fee. The lower per-team profit should still result in a higher net profit for the host school due to the incorporation of regular circuit teams showing up en masse in addition to these schools.

Excuse me if I'm being stupid... how would this solve the "host" problem? Like, it seems that the tournaments would still have to be run by SOMEONE, which would still end up being the Quizbowl Club, which would mean their best couldn't play...

The student union would probably be able to provide relatively "untrained" scorekeepers (UCLA was able to train volunteer scorekeepers for high school tournaments within about half an hour), and there should be some ACUI-associated (non-paid-CBI-employee) volunteers to bolster the moderating staff, especially in places like Region 14. Given this, a club's full resources would not necessarily have to be devoted to staffing the tournament.

I'm not sure this will be enough to prod more clubs into bidding to host. Are these ACUI-associated volunteers competent readers? If they can't get through ~20 tossups in 18 minutes, circuit teams are going to complain. If hosts have to provide most or all of the readers and don't even get one free bid, playing the club's top team in an effort to earn a bid means losing out on 4 competent moderators (usually), which is 8 teams' worth of staff, assuming there's a plentiful supply of scorekeepers.

Stepping back for a moment, do we know that ACUI is looking for a replacement for CBI? From the initial announcement that Billy posted, it's not clear to me that they are--people are saying the current form isn't effective but the future holds promise, this is a chance to try new ideas, etc. Perhaps they mean that CBI has failed and will disband, and ACUI is interested in finding some other group to provide tournaments, but perhaps they mean that the CBI people are going to sit down and try to come up with a new business model that they think will work (perhaps 2 mandatory IM tournaments per school, or perhaps they're going to spend next year trying really hard to get corporate sponsorship again). I certainly hope it's the former, but I don't think we should get our hopes up for anything good to be in place next year--I do hope NAQT gets in touch with ACUI about this, I'm just saying it's not clear to me that ACUI is interested in having an affiliated quizbowl-type program this next year. I think most or all of us agree that NAQT is in the best position to bid on the ACUI contract, if it's open for bidding, but will NAQT be interested in producing a second set of nationals and sectionals questions? If not, will ACUI be cool with NAQT's current nationals and sectionals model, with no required campus IM tournaments, and no strict regional delineations? I don't have a good feel for what parts of CBI's model ACUI cared about and what parts were peculiar to CBI; does anyone know more about what ACUI is likely to require from any replacement for CBI? Also, would affiliating with ACUI prevent NAQT from trying to do something with NACA? Based on comments in this thread, it sounds like NACA affiliation might be better than ACUI affiliation, so if the two are mutually exclusive perhaps NAQT should go for NACA if there's any chance of setting something up with them.

Regardless of what's going on with ACUI--whether they are actually looking for a replacement for CBI for next year, or just taking a year off with plans to resume CBI the following year, or whatever--getting in touch with previously CBI-only teams and trying to get them out to ACF Fall, SCT and other events will hopefully be even more effective this next year. Matt (or anyone else involved in this): is there work along these lines we can all help with?

-Seth

Ukonvasara wrote:

metsfan001 wrote:nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd

(EDIT: More HS tournaments should give out books, though.)

Clearly you need to come to more University of Minnesota tournaments.

Wanna fly us up there?

evilmonkey wrote:Matt, the fact remains that ACF does seem impossible to most first-timers. I think thats all Pickrell was pointing out here. The jump from CBI to NAQT would be much easier than that of CBI to ACF

Since I don't particularly have experience in playing the college circuit, I don't have much firsthand experience. While I'm aware ACF is something of a coalition and doesn't actually specify question difficulty, I think it's true that ACF is significantly more difficult than NAQT.

As evidence, I use my experience at the Weekend of Quizbowl. I was reading in the lower bracket both days, and it was my observation that the Saturday set (an ACF novice tournament) had far more tossups go unanswered than the Sunday set (NAQT Sectionals DII). In this sense, the ACF novice questions were more difficult than a second-tier regional-level NAQT tournament.

I do indeed agree that conversion of CBI teams to actual academic questions is a great improvement, but if there's a concerted effort, it's important to pay particular attention to not making the questions too difficult. This doesn't make it necessary to add more trash, but may require adding things that many of the ACF establishment will find too easy. It's important to remember that most of these CBI teams don't play NAQT or ACF at all. Tossing them into the ACF novice tournament I read at WOQ could be a disastrous failure at expanding membership.

For what it's worth, I thought Shawn used the word "medium" to connote an avenue for converting teams, not as a method of comparing difficulties.

Howard wrote:

evilmonkey wrote:Matt, the fact remains that ACF does seem impossible to most first-timers. I think thats all Pickrell was pointing out here. The jump from CBI to NAQT would be much easier than that of CBI to ACF

Since I don't particularly have experience in playing the college circuit, I don't have much firsthand experience. While I'm aware ACF is something of a coalition and doesn't actually specify question difficulty, I think it's true that ACF is significantly more difficult than NAQT.

False and false. ACF absolutely does speicify a difficulty and I'm sure Matt can demonstrate that ACF is statistically easier than NAQT.

Howard wrote:
As evidence, I use my experience at the Weekend of Quizbowl. I was reading in the lower bracket both days, and it was my observation that the Saturday set (an ACF novice tournament) had far more tossups go unanswered than the Sunday set (NAQT Sectionals DII). In this sense, the ACF novice questions were more difficult than a second-tier regional-level NAQT tournament.

That wasn't an ACF set. Also DII sectionals is the easiest college set NAQT writes.

Howard wrote:

evilmonkey wrote:Matt, the fact remains that ACF does seem impossible to most first-timers. I think thats all Pickrell was pointing out here. The jump from CBI to NAQT would be much easier than that of CBI to ACF

Since I don't particularly have experience in playing the college circuit, I don't have much firsthand experience. While I'm aware ACF is something of a coalition and doesn't actually specify question difficulty, I think it's true that ACF is significantly more difficult than NAQT.

That's statistically untrue.

the Saturday set (an ACF novice tournament)

Nope.

In this sense, the ACF novice questions were more difficult than a second-tier regional-level NAQT tournament.

Stupid giveaways do not an easier set make.

I do indeed agree that conversion of CBI teams to actual academic questions is a great improvement, but if there's a concerted effort, it's important to pay particular attention to not making the questions too difficult. This doesn't make it necessary to add more trash, but may require adding things that many of the ACF establishment will find too easy. It's important to remember that most of these CBI teams don't play NAQT or ACF at all. Tossing them into the ACF novice tournament I read at WOQ could be a disastrous failure at expanding membership.

ACF IS IMPOSSIBLE

Also, 1/1 anagrams and Count of Monte Cristo.

(EDIT: DARN YOU EVAN ADAMS)

ACF = my love

Howard wrote:Saturday set (an mACF novice tournament) had far more tossups go unanswered than the Sunday set (NAQT Sectionals DII).

I fixed that quote for you.

As others have pointed out, the questions used on Saturday were an independent circuit event edited by myself. I'm not affiliated with ACF, so you can't really blame whatever you perceive its problems to be on that organization.

Adamantium Claws wrote:I'm sure Matt can demonstrate that ACF is statistically easier than NAQT.

metsfan001 wrote:

Howard wrote:I think it's true that ACF is significantly more difficult than NAQT.

That's statistically untrue.

I think the numbers Matt has collected comparing ACF Regionals/Nationals and NAQT Sectionals/Nationals (e.g., this post and this post) are interesting to look at and suggestive of recent difficulty trends in those tournaments, but I don't think they constitute a convincing statistical argument that ACF is easier than NAQT (or that NAQT is easier than ACF, for that matter). I think there's just not enough data and too many variables.

Just wanted to point that out.

-Seth

p.s. Did Matt (or anyone else) collect and post data from the last couple ACF Falls?

I'm sure that the reason NAQT is "statistically harder" than ACF is because there are so many questions on random things that nobody knows or cares about, except for some NAQT member. When you compare NAQT questions about "normal" things to ACF questions on the same, I'm sure the NAQT questions will have easier lead-ins, more stock clues, etc. and thus be easier.

The ACUI website indicates that they are looking for "how to best provide a fun, team-building, educational program for college students in the future," but that could really be anything, and they do not list a timetable. It seems like they would be open for NAQT or any other "fun, team building, educational programs" to contact them. I shudder to think of what some of those other things might be. I still think a NACA affilliation might be the way to go. ACUI, like CBI, is losing members, as more schools designate student fees to campus activities offices that are outside of the college union. Working through NACA would allow NAQT to create its own system rather than being locked into what ACUI has done for the past 30 years. Nevertheless, NAQT seems to have no interest in NACA whatsoever, so I'm not sure that they will bother with ACUI either.

http://www.acui.org/content.aspx?menu_id=106&id=114

I'd like to once again invite people who are so alienated from the collegiate circuit that they do not even know which tournaments are ACF and which are NAQT to stop offering their opinions on the relative difficulties of ACF and NAQT tournaments, or confusing difficulties with formats. Really, you have no idea how eager I am for you to stop doing this.

Not only are they wrong, but there's also no reason to make these (incorrect) pronouncements about ACF vs. NAQT, since I think it's already been well-established in this thread, by ACF members, that the way NAQT is organized puts them in a vastly superior position to do something about this vacuum and bring new teams into the circuit. So why has this become the focus of discussion?!

Beyond that, I see the value in trying to take the ACUI system and overlay it onto the NAQT system, but I think that's a flawed way to approach it. The way CBI worked isn't compatible with the way most "club" teams would want to do things. Here are some reasons (assuming ACUI even wants to continue the program, which may be wrong):
- Holding an intramural tournament is actually a great thing, and I advise every club to run one on NAQT or house-written questions -- it's a fabulous recruiting tool if you do it well. BUT, being mandated to host an intramural, especially if it ends up being run by people who don't know quizbowl, will be frustrating for many established players. This element is likely the one that is NOT negotiable, since ACUI exists to provide programming on its campuses.
- Yes, having student unions host tournaments (RCT/SCT) would "solve" the hosting "problem". BUT, while many of the workers at CBI Regionals (in my experiences) are friendly and try hard, they and the people that supervise them have little experience with quizbowl beyond the present weekend. This wasn't a problem for CBI, with super-short questions and few teams that knew anything better; if this model continued to be followed for a new-look NAQT Sectionals, it would be an unmitigated disaster at many sites.
- Question length wouldn't matter any more than it does now, since it's timed, and 9-minute halves instead of 7 (or 8?) like CBI wouldn't be a big deal either. But difficulty would almost certainly have to be reduced for SCT if it replaced CBI RCT. I would guess NAQT would want to keep its current conversion percentages, but doing so with ACUI's non-circuit teams (while still providing valid comparisons between good teams) wouldn't be easy, if even possible.

Look, if NAQT wants to try to work with ACUI or NACA, I would welcome it. But my preference would be for NAQT to use those networks to distribute its intramural series and thereby promote its own (non-ACUI affiliated) SCT, rather than try to create some hybrid system like many have proposed here. Trying to integrate the club/circuit-based system we have now with the old administration-based system followed by CBI is just not feasible.

NoahMinkCHS wrote:Look, if NAQT wants to try to work with ACUI or NACA, I would welcome it. But my preference would be for NAQT to use those networks to distribute its intramural series and thereby promote its own (non-ACUI affiliated) SCT, rather than try to create some hybrid system like many have proposed here. Trying to integrate the club/circuit-based system we have now with the old administration-based system followed by CBI is just not feasible.

Agreed...this is what I meant by the caveat that NAQT should not change its questions or its structure. The ACUI tournaments with their incompetent fools trying to read games and their nonsensical "regions" were a huge part of the problem with College Bowl, and cannot be repeated in any successor activity that wants to be legitimate.

DJ Shadow wrote:I'm sure that the reason NAQT is "statistically harder" than ACF is because there are so many questions on random things that nobody knows or cares about, except for some NAQT member. When you compare NAQT questions about "normal" things to ACF questions on the same, I'm sure the NAQT questions will have easier lead-ins, more stock clues, etc. and thus be easier.

I don't think unexpectedly easy leadins necessarily make for higher tossup conversion; it probably would just create more frustration (it does for me, anyway). If an ordinary pyramidal tossup's clues are reversed (and, after all, sometimes stock clues are used as giveaways) then tossup conversion will be the same, since the same clues are used; the buzzes will just come at different times.

The real problem is the first one you pointed out: the NAQT distribution, which works for a high school circuit that, at the highest level, cares very much about the HSNCT and consequently will study for its distribution, doesn't work for a college circuit that plays two NAQT tournaments and a dozen ACF/mACF tournaments. So players study less current events and trash and sports, so a distro heavy in those is harder for college players.

So at WoQ, where the high school circuit was relevant, mACF was harder for those players--but it's impossible to assert that one format is harder than the other. The mACF of EFT is far, far easier than the NAQT of DI ICT, while the mACF of Chicago Open is far, far harder than the NAQT of IS-39A.

Does this mean that:

1. New writers/company will be writing for the HCASC tournament?

2. There will continue to exist a CBI company solely for the writing of HCASC?

3. HCASC will run repeats from previous years to celebrate 20 years?

Cutbacks, layoffs? Hmm...

KGeee wrote:Does this mean that:

1. New writers/company will be writing for the HCASC tournament?

2. There will continue to exist a CBI company solely for the writing of HCASC?

3. HCASC will run repeats from previous years to celebrate 20 years?

Cutbacks, layoffs? Hmm...

1. Probably not. HCASC seems to be one of the projects under the more-or-less umbrella corporation that is Richard Reid TV. It has a sponsor (CBI does not) and is therefore more profitable than CBI.

2. Britain's University Challenge and Celtel Africa Challenge are also involved with Richard Reid TV, along with possible other "educational programming".

3. Who knows?

Matt Weiner wrote:I'd like to once again invite people who are so alienated from the collegiate circuit that they do not even know which tournaments are ACF and which are NAQT to stop offering their opinions on the relative difficulties of ACF and NAQT tournaments, or confusing difficulties with formats. Really, you have no idea how eager I am for you to stop doing this.

I apologize for allowing my ignorance to compromise my point. Thanks to Evan and Trygve for pointing out my errors of fact, and Seth for actually looking up the threads I didn't have time to go find in the time I had to post at the moment.

To Trygve, I didn't find any particular problem with the set itself. There were a couple rounds that seemed easier than the others, but I figured that was most likely due to what I'd consider normal packet-to-packet difficulty variation in a packet-submission tournament.

So, I'll concede that NAQT may indeed be similar in difficulty (or even a little more difficult) than ACF. And if that's the case, then there may be need for concern about reaching the target audience. I agree that dissolution of CBI is a good thing as long as we're able to convert these people into what we'd consider the regular circuit. The obvious gains would be more teams at tournaments and the ability to hold more local tournaments to prevent College teams from having to travel several or more hours to attend tournaments. But if these people show up to the regular circuit and find something they dislike, they're not likely to come back, creating demand for another CBI-esque circuit. And this is the real point I was trying to address. Are these teams ready to be dropped into the difficulty level at which the circuit currently resides?

Since my original post, I've also attempted to locate Saturday stats from WOQ and have been unable to find them. Sunday stats were on the DACQ website. Chris, if I'm missing something that's under my nose, please direct me. If possible, I'd like to factually determine whether my impressions from reading were indeed correct.

metsfan001 wrote:Stupid giveaways do not an easier set make.

If your point is that the NAQT questions were answered more frequently solely due to giveaway clues, then that should be evidence that the questions were not written to the appropriate difficulty for the audience, WOQ Div II in this case. I understand that these questions were not intended for that audience in the first place, so I don't have any particular beef with NAQT on these grounds, nor do I have any beef with Chris/DACQ, who clearly advertised which sets they'd be using. By the same token, that would imply the sets were too hard for WOQ Div II. So here's the question. Will the CBI teams be able to compete at the level of nationals-level teams, or will they be more toward the level of the WOQ Div II teams? I think it'll be somewhere in the middle.

I think we may not be giving enough credit to random school X's ability to find a bunch of vaguely competent people, which is really all you need to be able to answer some questions at ACF Fall and the like. People on the CBI circuit have probably had some experience in high school, or some time to read books, or whatever, that prepares them to answer not-terribly-difficult questions, perhaps even early. If every CBI team consisted of refugees from Nowheresville C, it would be different, but I'm inclined to believe that most CBI players know enough to be decent circuit players and have fun at ACF/NAQT events (given the right mindset, which I think is the hard part, and also one that probably can't be controlled by question difficulty).

I admire your faith, Chris K, but I've played CBI and consequently have less optimism. In my region specifically, among the non-circuit teams, there was usually 1-2 that I could've seen attending SCT or ACF Fall and enjoying it; with a little work, these teams might have done OK, but obviously would've needed much more to do well. Most of the other teams were not good at CBI and would've needed substantially more work to go mainstream; many of these teams are basically bar trivia groups or hallmates that won a campus intramural and got a free trip to RCT. It's likely not the case that they mostly played in high school, and in fact, the people who did play in high school (e.g., Valdosta State from a couple years ago) actually tended to do quite well.

The big difference between CBI and ACF is that if you want to do reasonably well at ACF you need to prepare at least somewhat- CBI on the other hand allowed random reasonably intelligent people to sit down and feel really smart. Since the ACF canon isn't that big, it's not too hard to improve at it, but you need to have practiced a bit and heard similar questions before to feel comfortable. CBI often rewarded players for superficial knowledge and penalized those who might know more than one famous book in Arabic. But it shouldn't be too hard to orient new former CBI teams to ACF- just show them where they can find old questions for practice and they should get the hang of it in no time.

In response to Noah, I would say that the fact there are so many teams in the Southeast around similar levels would allow for at least competitive matches. I doubt that any of the former CBI teams will become regional powers, but I can see them winning games and not finishing at the rock bottom of their bracket. And when teams are transitioning from one format to another, putting points on the board and winning a few games is important. That's another reason I like rebracketing.

On a somewhat related note, I'm going to see what I can do about introducing East Africa to real quizbowl.

Question:

What happens if scores the new agreement with ACUI?



Don't think it can't or won't happen.

Buzz Buzzard wrote:Question:

What happens if scores the new agreement with ACUI?



Don't think it can't or won't happen.

Nice try to be the rain on this parade.

Buzz Buzzard wrote:Question:

What happens if scores the new agreement with ACUI?



Don't think it can't or won't happen.

Can't and won't happen.

I received the following yesterday:

Dear College Bowl volunteers and friends,
ACUI has many factors to consider in the coming months regarding partnership in any other form of academic challenge now that College Bowl has ceased production of question packets for College Bowl competitions. Our long-standing relationship as an educational partner with College Bowl has been much more involved than a general endorsement of the production company, so it is not as simple as just picking another company and continuing on where things left off. We want to give careful consideration to any opportunity that may be available.

This topic will be an item on the ACUI Board of Trustees strategic directions committee agenda at their meeting in Bloomington, IN July 9-12 and I want to be prepared with as much information as possible going into that meeting so I've crafted a survey to gather some feedback. Your candid and honest remarks to the survey questions will be greatly appreciated.



Take a few minutes to complete the brief survey at the attached link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm= ... LqMQ_3d_3d

Please respond to this survey by no later than the end of the day, Monday, July 7. It will be through the ideas of many that we determine how any form of academic challenge program may or may not fit within ACUI's strategic plans for the future.

This survey has been distributed to approximately 150 known College Bowl volunteers, many of which are former College Bowl Regional Coordinators, but the list also includes volunteer names submitted by regional coordinators of personnel who have been avid volunteers for many years. You are welcome to forward the link for the survey on to anyone else that you know who may also be a fan of College Bowl and wants to contribute ideas to ACUI's future plans.

Thank you in advance for your participation!

Gail Sutton Ferlazzo
ACUI College Bowl Program Team Chair
Associate Director of the Memorial Union
Iowa State University of Science & Technology
3639 Memorial Union
Ames, IA 50011-1130
Phone: 515-294-2301
Fax: 515-294-4172
[email protected]
http://www.mu.iastate.edu

The survey itself is pretty funny. They kind of seem to be under the impression that their staffers were 1) competent and 2) desirable. Their options for formats other than NAQT, ACF, TRASH do give me the distinct impression that could have a chance with them. I, for one, wish they'd just leave us alone.

Interesting, especially questions like

Rate the level of importance you place on the following potential benefits institutions receive from ACUI's partnership with a program like College Bowl (compared to independent participation in academic challenge programs of their individual choice)

Network of experienced volunteer tournament directors and program coordinators within ACUI for support
ACUI can negotiate more favorable rates/costs of the program on behalf of all participating institutions
ACUI can negotiate improvements in the program on behalf of all participating institutions

Well, it would be great if ACUI could actually do this. Unfortunately, since ACUI's CBI events are more expensive and less well-run... I'm not sure what the answer to this should be.

And wow... Trivial Pursuit? NTN? I guess, if it ends up that an ACUI-NAQT partnership isn't happening, it might not be a bad idea to remove all pretense.

Wow, I'm surprised that they admit the existence of ACF!

I think an "Ethics Bowl" side-event should be held at some tournament next year.

What is Ethics Bowl exactly? I looked at the survey and thought it was a joke, but then I realized the quality of humor among student union types....
Perhaps someone could suggest Beall's behavior as possible questions for this Ethics Bowl.

Here is an explanation:

http://ethics.iit.edu/eb/format.html

It appears to have certain similarities with high school LD debate.

You could get a good three or four years of Ethics Bowl questions just out of stuff College Bowl has done in the past.

This was received from Gail today:

Many thanks to those of you who have already completed the College Bowl volunteer survey or forwarded the link on to other volunteers. So far, we've received 119 responses. The opinions are quite varied and there have been lots of comments written beyond just checking the boxes, which is especially helpful - it has been fascinating to browse.

It's evident that some of the replies have come from players rather than personnel who have helped as volunteers in running tournaments. In hindsight, I should have been more specific in my invitation to forward the link on to others. While it's fine for players to reply, it's important to note that the survey was written seeking the perspective of tournament volunteers as we want to assess whether we will have the organizational support available to pursue any form of new venture, if one is pursued. Sometimes I’m not sure that the players always understand all that occurs behind the scenes to build success for a program like this. There may be a future survey that is geared specifically toward players to make sure that we're considering something that will be attractive for college students to participate in.

If you haven't had a chance to complete survey yet - it's not too late! Follow the link below. The survey will close at the end of the day Monday, July 7 so that ACUI Leadership will have an opportunity to review feedback during their meetings in Bloomington July 9-12.

Gail

-------

Show of hands how "us simple players couldn't possibly understand how hard it is to run a tournament competently even though most of us do it every week"? That's what I thought.

ACUI wrote: Sometimes I’m not sure that the players always understand all that occurs behind the scenes to build success for a program like this.

And sometimes, when we do understand, they get really scared.

allythin wrote:...all that occurs behind the scenes to build success for a program like this.

How's that working out for them?

MaS

allythin wrote:This was received from Gail today:

Many thanks to those of you who have already completed the College Bowl volunteer survey or forwarded the link on to other volunteers. So far, we've received 119 responses. The opinions are quite varied and there have been lots of comments written beyond just checking the boxes, which is especially helpful - it has been fascinating to browse.

It's evident that some of the replies have come from players rather than personnel who have helped as volunteers in running tournaments. In hindsight, I should have been more specific in my invitation to forward the link on to others. While it's fine for players to reply, it's important to note that the survey was written seeking the perspective of tournament volunteers as we want to assess whether we will have the organizational support available to pursue any form of new venture, if one is pursued. Sometimes I’m not sure that the players always understand all that occurs behind the scenes to build success for a program like this. There may be a future survey that is geared specifically toward players to make sure that we're considering something that will be attractive for college students to participate in.

If you haven't had a chance to complete survey yet - it's not too late! Follow the link below. The survey will close at the end of the day Monday, July 7 so that ACUI Leadership will have an opportunity to review feedback during their meetings in Bloomington July 9-12.

Gail

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Show of hands how "us simple players couldn't possibly understand how hard it is to run a tournament competently even though most of us do it every week"? That's what I thought.

Wow. Typical Union Board flunkie arrogance, neatly summed up and self-confessed.

It would be more stunning if it weren't so stereotypical. Is it really just an across-the-board Union Board thing that you're obligated to act like you know better, even when you haven't the slightest clue?