ACUI-NAQT Strategic Partnership
In November 2009 NAQT and the Association of College Unions International 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 will be the ACUI-NAQT Quiz Bowl — A Collegiate Academic Challenge Program. Informally, of course, it will continue to be "quiz bowl."
The strategic partnership agreement does not, however, cover every policy detail; most of those are still under discussion, but we hope to come to a final agreement by December 1 so we can let teams and advisers know exactly how this year's championship events will work. The partnership does, however, provide a high-level outline of goals, ideals, and responsibilities.
Under the terms of the agreement, NAQT has the responsibility for developing questions, establishing rules of play, determining qualification criteria, structuring tournaments, and making other decisions that directly affect gameplay. ACUI and NAQT will share the responsibility for establishing eligibility guidelines. ACUI will have the primary responsibility for developing marketing materials and bringing the program to the attention of student activities personnel.
The program will have three major parts:
Intramural competition: Participating schools will be 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, unlike in the past, running an intramural will not be a requirement for participation in Sectional Championship Tournaments (SCTs).
Interscholastic competition: Participating schools will be encouraged to organize a "quiz bowl club" for students interested in playing more frequently and at a higher level. This club would 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 will be 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 will be adopted as a guideline for the siting of SCTs; host assignment will begin with the assumption that every Region will have one SCT. Entities, including ACUI Regions, can bid for these tournaments just as in the past. 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 will follow existing host requirements; in addition, like all tournaments, they will be 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 is anticipated to remain very similar 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 will continue to be allowed to send as many teams as they want to Sectionals.
Community college teams will be welcomed as part of the program; Community College Sectional Championship Tournaments (CC SCTs) will continue to be organized as before (with less regard for ACUI regions due to the geographic distribution of such teams) and the Community College Championship Tournament (CCCT) will continue as before. In addition, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) will be welcomed as part of the program and encouraged to take part in invitationals, Sectionals, and the ICT (as well as in the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, with which NAQT has no connection).
NAQT will continue to post updates on its discussions with ACUI as well as any formally instituted rule changes; in the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to e-mail us at naqt@naqt.com.