Academic Team Wins First National Championship

Jefferson Community and Technical College’s Academic Team recently returned from Atlanta with its first national championship.

Jefferson outlasted defending champion State College Manatee (Florida) in the final round 225-185 to win the 2016 Community College Championship Tournament, finishing a perfect 12-0 in the tournament. The JCTC team currently has an impressive 42-2 record this year against community colleges.

By winning the tournament, Jefferson won a bid to the 4 year Intercollegiate Championship Tournament to be held in Chicago on April 9.

Among the teams that have qualified for the 4-year national championship are Harvard, Yale, Columbia and MIT.

Members of Jefferson’s team include Captain Kimberly Cissell, Tim Ellis, Jason Klueber, and Brandon Beaven. The team is coached by Mathematics professor Peter Rodski and Biology Professor Amy Sprinkle.

“We’ll definitely be underdogs in Chicago. But I keep telling my players, Calculus is the same at JCTC as it is at Harvard,” said Rodski. “We even use the same book. And the capital of Morocco is still the same for Yale students as it is for Jefferson students. I don’t think we’ll be intimidated. We’ve got some great students in Louisville, and this team has worked really hard this year.”

JCTC is the only community college in Kentucky to qualify for the Community College Championship Tournament (top 24 community colleges in the country) and the first to win a national championship as well.

Quiz bowl questions range over the entire spectrum of a college curriculum and also include a certain amount of current events, sports, and popular culture.

“By the way, the capital of Morocco is Rabat,” added Rodski.

See the stats from the championship can be found here.