What is the most pressing concern in college quizbowl today (2023 version)?

[AKKOLADE]

Last year, we did this survey. It was inspired by a similar survey in 2018.

I have removed "Payment for tournaments is too complex" as an option since only two people voted for it last year. I did not add any options, as the discussion in the thread was primarily focused on the issues in quiz bowl when it comes to solving some issues, which is a separate discussion from this thread.

If you vote for other, please post what it is.

[AKKOLADE]

I guess I forgot to put an 'other' option so, uh, just post that stuff here!

[Cheynem]

I don't really want to select one particular concern, as I think all of them to some extent are issues, but I think the primary issue, which connects to many of them, is that too many collegiate programs are floundering for a variety of reasons. They lack proper tournaments to play, they lack guidance in how to run a club, they don't have the resources to know how to run a tournament, they aren't motivated to attend tournaments, they lack money, and they may be unaware of any people or organizations who could help them. Some of this is beyond quizbowl's help per se--I think the pandemic did a number on some clubs getting funding or being able to host a tournament. But I see this a lot in the Discord and other places--people in a club don't know how to run a tournament or host a tournament, they don't know what they can do to get people to join their team and stay on their team, they both are reluctant to play anything beyond Fall difficulty but also don't have a ton of options to play their area.

I think a lot of this could be improved by more organization, mostly perhaps on a regional level, where clubs can share resources and thoughts and perhaps avoid situations in which the same club always seems to host or nobody schedules an appropriate tournament for a region.

[cchiego]

The money part is interesting to see get so many votes this year. Would be interested in hearing from any fledgling clubs that are experiencing these fiscal challenges.

I wonder if some of that is also linked to increased restrictions and paperwork. It is getting very difficult to host an in-person tournament in some parts of the country, which can exacerbate the financial issues. And that increased red tape can also make it harder for new clubs to start up and survive, much less get the funds and permission to go on an overnight trip (which could require dozens of pages of paperwork and very early permission-acquiring/budgeting for each event).

Also agree with Mike that more regional organization could be useful as a way to partially address some of these issues and pool resources at the HS and collegiate level.

[Cheynem]

I realize now my post was fundamentally very similar to an excellent post from Olivia in last year's thread:

I like this list, but I keep thinking that "identifying the current most pressing concern" is actually secondary to the greater question of our ability to solve it once identified. Many of these concerns are united in that they can be (and, arguably, would best be) addressed by top-down leadership from trusted institutions like ACF, NAQT, or the misconduct form representatives. Based on my limited experience in quizbowl leadership, the people in these leadership roles are well-intentioned and doing their best! There just simply are not enough resources (money, time, interested people) to do all the things that could or should be done. At the same time, there are many people who appear to want to work to improve college quizbowl, but who are outside the institutions that are best placed to do that work.

A more robust set of institutions could, for example:
handle misconduct in ways that better generate and maintain public trust and high standards for behavior
establish a stronger pipeline of editors for hard tournaments
conduct wider-reaching outreach programs and provide more support for new teams
model and enforce “professionalism” in whatever ways the community feels it is currently lacking
actively support efforts to increase diversity in players, writers, and leadership
It is noteworthy that “misconduct” is a leading concern in the 2022 poll (behind first place by only 1 vote at the time of this post), but was not included on the list four years ago or even named in the ensuing discussion. It seems likely that the major concerns for college quizbowl in 2026 will include ones that we do not currently imagine. I see a robust infrastructure for leadership — one that brings people into decision-making processes, that matches problems with potential problem-solvers — as the way toward increasing our capacity to respond to existing and future issues.

I think we need to actually put more work into solving these problems in the veins Olivia mentions.