Greek Senate hosted Greek Week’s Academic Bowl that took place on April 23 at 9:30 pm in the Rebecca Stafford Student Center (RSSC)’s Anacon Hall. Over 300 students attended the event to see which Greek organization would be crowned academic champions.
Each sorority and fraternity was required to have a total of four members on their team and there were four rounds of questioning. Rules for the night stated that each team had exactly 60 seconds to respond to the questions projected on the big screen. After each round, a different sorority or fraternity faced elimination depending on the overall score, and by round three, two teams were eliminated.
The brothers of Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) won the event with their knowledge of random topics and subjects. Vincent Vento, a brother of TKE, mentioned that it was great being there to compete with his brothers. “It feels really great to bring home the W to the men of Tau Kappa Epsilon, we definitely had the mentality that we could win, which is the right mindset to be in if you want to win,” said Vento.
Round one of the competition consisted of 10 questions and ranged from subjects such as chemistry, to basic knowledge about West Long Branch and Monmouth University. By the end of round one, Phi Kappa Psi (Phi Psi), Alpha Kappa Psi (AKPsi), Delta Phi Epsilon (DPhiE), Sigma Pi (Sig Pi), Sigma Tau Gamma (STG), Tau Kappa Epsilon, and Alpha Xi Delta (AXiD) advanced. There was also a tie breaker between fraternities Delta Tau Delta (DTD) and Tau Delta Phi (TDP), resulting in the elimination of DTD.
Round two consisted of seven questions regarding topics involving the human body, and geography. Round three resulted in both AKPsi and DPhiE being eliminated, leaving STG, TKE, Phi Psi, DPhiE, and AKPsi to battle it out for the title of Academic Bowl winners.
Joe Dellera, a senior political science major and brother of TKE, said that their teams were picked by carrying over people from prior years. Dellera and brother, Marc Hahn, a senior criminal justice student, have been on the team since they were both freshmen. Fellow teammate Kevin Konapaka, a senior history student, joined the team his sophomore year and the newest addition to the team was senior, Vento.
Gabriella Tornatore, a health studies major, is a member of DPhiE said, “I thought the Academic Bowl had challenging questions to ask and even though that makes it more fun, I thought the questions were a bit ridiculous.”
Tornatore attended the event because it was mandatory to cheer on her fellow sisters in DPhiE. It was also her third and final year attending. Overall, Tornatore said she was surprised and thought that DPhiE would advance because the girls who participated were all very bright and intelligent.
Vento and Dellera both said that the toughest question of the night was the question that asked the name of the actor who played Carlton Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” The reason behind this, they concluded, was because he is no longer a prominent actor. The easiest question for Vento was who voiced Fiona’s name in Shrek because he loves that movie. Dellera, on the other hand, viewed the McDonald’s question regarding the number of calories in a Big Mac as easiest to answer considering the amount of times he has enjoyed Big Macs.
Swanson said that the results did not shock her. “I was not exactly surprised by the outcome, I thought TKE had a solid group representing them and they knew a lot of information. I thought the questions were very difficult because they were all about completely random information. Surprisingly many groups got the answers right.”
PHOTO COURTESY of Taylor Copp
