Academic Quiz Bowl catapults Elon’s intellectual climate with four wins at regionals

Students have rallied together to bolster intellectual climate on campus in the form of a new academic student organization called Quiz Bowl. 

Similar to Team Jeopardy, students compete in trivia matches across world histories and cultures, current events, the sciences, fine arts, and general trivia.  Elon recently competed in their first Academic Quiz Bowl Sectional Tournament, sponsored by National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT).

Elon University’s Academic Quiz Bowl Team scored four wins at regionals by defeating Liberty University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Roanoke College and Wofford College. Though the university’s team did not earn a place in the NAQT National Tournament, Elon certainly made a lasting impact on the academic landscape of the region through our presence in this tournament.

Elon’s tournament team consisted of Clay Thompson ’19, Jacob Hayward ’20 and Nathan Scheer ’19.  They made a huge impact on this academic competition as seen in the ranking of the tournament’s Top 100 players, where they finished Nos. 75, 40 and 7, respectively.​

Quiz Bowl began in Fall 2016 as an intellectual climate collaboration across assistant provost for communications and operations, Paul Miller, and director of the Gender and LGBTQIA Center, Matthew Antonio Bosch, who was a member of Cornell University’s Quiz Bowl team.  Taylor Hernowitz ’19 originally recruited students as Quiz Bowl’s first student president and helped the organization and executive team grow before studying abroad in the spring.

Members of the executive team, Jacob Hayward ’20 and Ali Heilman ’20, recently welcomed and recruited a crop of new students. “I love Quiz Bowl because it is a great way to de-stress and have fun while still feeling like you’re learning a lot!” Hayward says. 

Always searching for more students interested in trivia and fun academic competition, Academic Quiz Bowl practices are open to any student and take place Fridays at 4 p.m. in Belk Library 102.  Anyone interested in Academic Quiz Bowl can contact the current president Clay Thompson ’19 (ithompson5@elon.edu) or advisor Matthew Antonio Bosch (mbosch3@elon.edu) to get involved. 

Finding community through Quiz Bowl, Thompson says, “I’ve always been interested in trivia but lacked a format to pursue it on a regular basis with real people, in person. So to me, Quiz Bowl is not just a club that caters to intellectuals, but a community that welcomes students with open arms. It’s what all clubs should be.”