Academic Challenge Overview

Sectional Championship Tournament (SCT) host site information for 2012 is now available! 

ACUI-NAQT Strategic Partnership

In November 2009, NAQT and ACUI established a strategic partnership to return quiz bowl to ACUI's portfolio of student activities and to increase participation in NAQT's collegiate tournaments. Both parties want to see more students playing quiz bowl and look forward to working together to help new teams get started, improve themselves, and attend tournaments. Officially, this is now the ACUI-NAQT Quiz Bowl — A Collegiate Academic Challenge Program.

Under the terms of the agreement, NAQT develops questions, establishes rules of play, determines qualification criteria, structures tournaments, and makes other decisions that directly affect gameplay. ACUI and NAQT share the responsibility for establishing eligibility guidelines. ACUI has the primary responsibility for developing marketing materials and bringing the program to the attention of student activities personnel.

The program has three major parts:

• Intramural competition: Participating schools are strongly encouraged to run intramural tournaments for the enjoyment of their student bodies, to help identify potential varsity team members, and to bring greater visibility to the program on campus. However, running an intramural is not a requirement for participation in Sectional Championship Tournaments (SCTs).

• Interscholastic competition: Participating schools are encouraged to organize a "quiz bowl club" for students interested in playing more frequently and at a higher level. This club can travel to tournaments, assist with the running of on-campus events, and possibly organize tournaments of its own. Similarly, there is no requirement that a school field an interscholastic team to hold intramural activities.

• High school tournaments: Participating schools are encouraged to host high school tournaments to provide opportunities for local teams to compete, to show off the college to potential attendees, and to raise funds for its quiz bowl club and/or activities program. In the long run, this may even be a recruiting tool for the school's interscholastic team!

ACUI's structure of 15 regions covering North America, Australia, and parts of Europe have been adopted as a guideline for the siting of SCTs; host assignment begins with the assumption that every region will have one SCT. Entities, including ACUI regions, can bid for these tournaments. Neither NAQT nor ACUI is wedded to the idea of having exactly 15 SCTs every year; we will probably begin with 15 hosts, but participation numbers and/or geography may lead us to "double up" in regions that require more space or combine two tournaments if the number of registrations is low.

ACUI regions chosen to host sectionals must follow existing host requirements; in addition, like all tournaments, they are expected to make use of experienced local staff and experienced moderators brought by teams.

Teams will always be able to attend their "home" sectional; they will also always have the choice of attending the closest sectional instead, even if it is in another region. Should they want to attend a sectional that is neither of these, a request for an exception will be considered by a committee established by NAQT and ACUI.

Sectional policy has remained very similar to ACUI's previous relationship with College Bowl Inc. in terms of question style, rules, suggested format, automatic qualification, the existence of S-values for inviting non-champions, and having both Division I and Division II competition. In addition, schools are allowed to send as many teams as they want to sectionals. 

 

For more information about getting involved with the ACUI-NAQT Quiz Bowl — A Collegiate Academic Challenge Program, please contact the ACUI Central Office staff liaison:

Brian Magee
Association of College Unions International
brimagee@acui.org
812.245.8088