College hosts 10th annual scholastic bowl
Date: Mar 01, 2007
The College of William and Mary hosted the 10th Annual Virginia High School League Scholastic Bowl on campus Feb. 24.
The statewide competition has taken place at William and Mary for about five years. Members of the Christopher Wren association play an important role in the event by finding volunteers to serve as score keepers, time keepers and quiz masters, said Earl T. Granger, William and Mary associate provost for enrollment.
“It’s a huge volunteer effort,” he said.
Clay Clemens, William and Mary Hamilton Professor of Government, was one of the volunteers at this year’s bowl.
“It's fun to be there because the students who take part are frighteningly knowledgeable--they should get tenure,” he said. “My role was as a quizmaster, meaning I read the questions, and pretend to know the answers. But, in nine out of 10 cases, of course I don't. In one round, I think the only question I could answer that the students could not was about Walter Cronkite, and that really was testimony to my age more than anything else. They work very hard and take it very seriously, as with any other type of competition.”
Students from across the state compete in local and regional contests to reach the state tournament. The four-person teams are tested on their knowledge of English, math, science, social studies and miscellaneous areas including current events, entertainment, the arts and sports.
“Without basic knowledge of all areas of the world around us, critical thought is impossible and higher knowledge is impossible to attain,” said Shawn Pickrell, a veteran high school and college academic competition player, coach and official. “Scholastic Bowl is a fun, competitive mechanism for testing the basic knowledge of the world around us.”
Schools compete in the bowl in three groups (A, AA and AAA) based on enrollment. This year, 24 schools from across Virginia competed in the event, including five from the Hampton Roads area. They were West Point, Matthews, Tabb, Princess Anne and Ocean Lakes.
Matthews came in third place and West Point came in sixth place in Group A. Tabb took fourth in Group B. Princess Anne came in third and Ocean Lakes came in sixth in Group AAA. The Virginia Beach school district has had a school in the competition for seven of the ten years it has been in existence.
Although William and Mary does not view the competition as a recruitment event, Granger recognizes that bringing students to the campus can lead to an interest in the College.
“Given that these are high-school students who are Virginians, we very much want them on our campus because in many ways, these are the kind of students we want to target,” he said. “The Virginia High School League scholastic bowl gives us an opportunity in some ways to see what kind of academic and scholastic talent is out there, in an informal way.”
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