Quest V breaks records with more students, more entries

A record-breaking 627 students—20 percent of the student body—submitted questions to the Richmond Quest V competition.

Their 947 questions also broke a record, eclipsing the previous high of 436 entries in Quest I, said Julie Tea, director of special projects in the President’s Office and Quest staff co-chair. Tea said 40 questions were group entries, and all undergraduate classes were “well represented” among the entries. Seventy-four faculty and staff members served as mentors for 197 of the entries.

“The quality of the questions is outstanding. It’s clear that our students embraced the task with a seriousness of purpose,” she said.

Richmond Quest is a competition to find a broad question that can be explored by all of the University’s academic disciplines over the next two years. The winner will receive a cash prize of $25,000.

From the pool of questions, reviewers selected 10 and requested their authors to write 1,500-word rationales, which were placed on the Quest Web site (quest.richmond.edu). The campus community has until noon on March 2 to provide comments to the review committee on the finalists.

The winner will be announced at a reception March 13 at 5 p.m. in the Alice Haynes Room.

“With the participation of more than 20 percent of the student body, the Quest has clearly captured the imagination of our intellectual community,” noted Dr. Kathy Hewett-Smith, associate professor of English and Quest faculty co-chair.

Winner of Richmond Quest IV, Jason Levinn, ’08, served on this year’s review committee. His winning question was “What moves us?”

Since its inception, Richmond Quest has inspired and supported the creation of more than 70 new and revised courses, more than 130 special events and more than 100 independent student research projects.