By Erin Miller

Editor in chief

A new tradition may have been born Wednesday night in the Commons Lecture Hall as three teams of students took on three professor teams in a battle of the minds.

The first-ever Calvin Quiz Bowl pitted students against faculty and against each other for the right to compete in the final round of the tournament. The faculty team of captain David Van Baak, Physics, James Bratt, History, Ken Heffner, director of Student Activities, and Randy Bytwerk, CAS, defeated the student team of sophomore captain Phil Ammar, senior Katie Schildhouse, sophomore Edward DeVries and freshman Adam Petty by a score of 490 to 275.

The winning team remained undefeated throughout the contest; their scores were never rivaled by their student opponents.

The top student team did win the third section of four in the final round. In that round, a 60-second speed round, the losing team was given the choice of one of three topics from which 10 questions would be given. The team would have 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. For the round, Ammar deferred the title of captain to Petty, who correctly answered 9 of 10 questions asking who composed famous pieces of classical music.

In the same round, the faculty were able to correctly answer seven of 10 questions in which they were given a number and were asked to give the phrase or object with which that number is often associated.

Organized by Student Senator Abram VanEngen, the goal of the competition was the coveted ``Tiki Torch of Knowledge'' but also an opportunity for students and faculty who do not already know each other to meet outside of a classroom situation.

``I just think there needs to be a lot of student-faculty interaction,'' VanEngen said. ``That's part of what makes a great place, that people know each other. Calvin has done a good job of that, with open offices.''

But the Quiz Bowl was intended to take that interaction to a new, friendly, if competitive, level. Participants all said they enjoyed the competition and were looking forward to having another in the future.

The winners, quite proud of their accomplishments, were willing to share two secrets to their success. One was practicing with coach Helen Sterk, also from the CAS department. The second secret was revealed by Bratt.

``This is what happens from wasting your life on books,'' he said.