By:
Chuck Woods (352) 392-1773 x 281Source:
James Sterns JASterns@ufl.edu, (352) 392-1826
GAINESVILLE, Fla.—For the second year in a row, students in the University of Florida’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences are national champions in the 2003 Academic Quiz Bowl held July 27-29 at the national meeting of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) in Montreal, Canada.
Kristin Gose, Mark Vuckovic and Vince Smith, seniors majoring in food and resource economics, were among 36 teams from other universities and colleges in the United States and Canada competing in the tournament. Gose is from Sebring, Fla.; Vuckovic is from Keystone Heights; and Smith is from Gainesville.
Students participated in teams of three, competing in a triple-elimination tournament. A total of 103 students competed.
“This year, UF students defeated a team from Oklahoma State in the final round,” said James Sterns, faculty adviser to the students and an assistant professor in the Department of Food and Resource Economics in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
“Kristin Gose, Mark Vuckovic and Vince Smith went undefeated in six rounds of competition, never losing a match. By winning the tournament, the team successfully defended our school’s national title,” Sterns said.
“It also should be noted that this is the second year in a row that a UF team has had a perfect record in the tournament, without losing a single match,” he said.
A second UF team, which included senior Michael-Brianne Jacobus and juniors David Spencer and Paige Wingate, placed fifth in the tournament. Jacobus is from Fort Pierce; Spencer is from Ponte Vedra; and Wingate is from Milton. All are majoring in food and resource economics.
Questions, testing the students’ knowledge on basic and advanced concepts, covered eight topic areas in each 15-minute round: microeconomics, macroeconomics, quantitative methods, agribusiness and finance, marketing, management, resource and policy economics, and “potpourri.”
Point values for questions range from five to 25 points, much like the TV show Jeopardy. Students “buzz in” and then are allowed to consult with their teammates before giving an answer. If the answer is correct, the team earns points; if incorrect, the team loses the points associated with the question.
Tiffany Browning, a graduate student majoring in food and resource economics, served as the student assistant for the 2003 competition. Browning, along with fellow graduate student Morgan Hughes and former student Staci Braswell, were on the UF team that won the 2002 Academic Quiz Bowl tournament in Long Beach, Ca.
The tournament was sponsored by AAEA, a professional society with more than 3,000 members, representing academics, practitioners and government policy advisers from around the world. For more information, visit the AAEA Web site at http://www.aaea.org/.
The 2003 AAEA annual meetings were held in conjunction with the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society and the Canadian Agricultural Economics Society.
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