Tonight witnessed the annual Quis Quid game at WCC. It is an all-school quiz game for which the students are divided into Poets, Philosophers, and Cowboys to compete for the Throne of Wisdom. Teachers judge the teams’ answers to quiz questions, and they are horribly unfair judges: even if they have no idea of the correct answer themselves, they judge yay or nay based on bribes, whim, or amusement.
When I interviewed here at the College, my first night on campus fell during the Quis Quid game. They pressed me into service as a judge, and I remember vividly when a “question” under the category of “body” was posed to a student team: “Levitate.” That simple, just a single-word imperative. And the team that “levitated” (however they chose to interpret the word) best in the judges’ (horribly unfair) opinion won the round.
I left Quis Quid early tonight, as the Poets and the Cowboys were competing for best answer to the question, “What is the theological significance of the fact that an equilateral triangle is constructed using two circles?”
A candidate for the presidency of WCC was in attendance tonight. It’s his first night on campus; I feel for him, but at least he wasn’t pressed into service as a judge. As I slid into a seat behind him he turned to introduce himself. “Nice to meet you,” I said–then glancing up at the students, dressed in outlandish costumes, one with fake tatoos up his naked arms (tell me they’re fake!), another with a huge, puffy wig waving raucously, others going “Greek” in bedsheets–“and, um, welcome to WCC.”
Reading these is bringing me back – I had completely forgotten that Dr. Roberts was at Quis Quid freshman year.