The annual Southeastern Louisiana University Phi Kappa Phi Homecoming Intramural Quiz Bowl, part of the Homecoming Week festivities, awarded the faculty team, “Cognitive Pi” top honors. “Cognitive Pi” finished first in the faculty bracket and succeeded against the student bracket winner “Mitt Romney Style.”
The competition took place on Oct. 23 at 12 p.m. in the Student Union Theatre.  The champion team was made up of Kent Neuerberg, mathematics professor; Rebecca Davis, associate professor and interim department head of communications sciences and disorders and Lily Stiegler, professor of communications sciences and disorders.
“We didn’t really prepare in advance,” said Stiegler. “We just have been participating in the quiz bowl every year for about five or six years, and we just go over there now and have fun. “
The Southeastern Alumni Association offered a $100 grand prize and $50 runner up prizes for the competition. “Cognitive Pi” team members were presented with the $100 grand prize from Danny Acosta, Phi Kappa Phi Quiz Bowl co-chair. The “Mitt Romney Style” team members Victoria Davidson, Tim Reling, Damon Bell and Daniel Dees were presented their $50 runner up honors prize. Runner up prizes of $50 were also given to faculty team “Dewey Decimators” and student team “The Deathless Ones.”
According to Stiegler, this year’s win was not an easy one.
“We had a great time. All the matches were close though,” said Stiegler. “The library and English departments both have a great team. The reason we were able to win was that this year there were a lot of math questions, and Dr. Neuerberg is a math wiz.”
Despite the several years of competing, this was the first overall win for the team.
“We won the faculty bracket the first time we entered, and one time we won second place, but we never have beaten the students, so that was a first,” said Stiegler.
The unique team name was formed out of a combination of Stiegler’s individual teaching phrase and the team’s mathematic association.
“‘Cognitive Pi’ is a metaphor that I use in my teaching,” said Stiegler. “I call it ‘pie’ in my teaching, but when we teamed up with the math, we changed it to ‘pi’ so that there would be an element of math.”