Student Union
Indian-Americans Dominate the Spelling Bee, Again
The 12-year-old from Fresno, California, showed little emotion and needed little time as she correctly spelled word after word. Sometimes she would ask the official bee pronouncer, Jacques Bailly, all the important questions, such as “Part of speech?” and ″Language of origin?” Sometimes, though, she did not even do that.
Ananya seized her chance at victory when her only remaining opponent, Rohan Rajeev, misspelled a word. It was a simple-looking but rarely used Scandinavian word, “marram,” a beach grass.
Ananya then calmly spelled two words in a row. Her winning word was “marocain,” a clothing fabric.
“I knew them all,” Ananya later said.
Ananya hardly smiled, even when her parents and younger brother hurried onto the stage to hug her as colorful confetti fell. She took time to comfort Rohan, who remained in his seat, rubbing tears from his eyes.
“It’s like a dream come true,” Ananya said. “I’m so happy right now.”
She will take home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
Ananya is the 13th Indian-American in a row to win the bee. Like her predecessors, she prepared by taking part in highly competitive bees that are limited to Indian-Americans.
Bee Background
More than 290 spellers traveled to Washington earlier this week to take part in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. They qualified for the event by winning their regional or local spelling competitions.
Most of the competitors are in middle school. This year’s oldest competitor was 15. The youngest speller, Edith Fuller, just turned 6. Bee organizers said they believe she is the youngest person ever to qualify for the national spelling bee.
After qualifying in March when she was 5, Edith became famous nationwide. On Wednesday, in between rounds of competition, she held her own press conference.
"Edith, how does it feel to be the youngest speller in history?"
"It feels really exciting."
"Do you hope to come back to the bee next year?"
"I do, if I don’t win this time."
After her press conference, Edith correctly spelled “tapas” in the third round. But, her score on a written vocabulary test was not high enough to move her forward to the final on Thursday.
Preparing for the Bee
All bee words come from the more than 490,000 entries in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.
Bee qualifiers study for many hours each day. They learn language patterns and the roots of words. A root is the foundation for other words.
Successful spellers know much about Latin, French, Greek and Sanskrit roots and rules. In the finals Thursday, spellers faced words including “choucroute” and “tulsi.” “Choucroute" is a French word for pickled cabbage. “Tulsi” is a kind of herb. That word entered the Hindi language from Sanskrit.
While some of this year’s bee words were recognizable to the average American, most were not. Almost all entered English from other languages. But a few -– McMansion, shopaholic and webisode –- were words new in American popular culture.
A few were even trademarked names, like “Klydonograph.” That name for an instrument that makes a photographic record of power surges stumped competitor Erin Howard in the final rounds. Klydonograph has no known roots or language of origin.
Last year’s winners
Nihar Janga was 11 years old when he tied with then-13-year-old Jairam Hathwar at the 2016 National Spelling Bee. The dazzling duo correctly spelled all the words they were given for 25 rounds, then judges finally declared them co-winners of the bee.
Winners are not permitted to compete again in following years, but both Nihar and Jairam came to Washington this year to watch.
“It was very packed at the beginning with a lot of media tours and events and meeting a lot of people," Jairam said. "After that it started to die down.”
Last was was the third bee in a row with two co-champions. This year, bee organizers added a tiebreaker test to make that outcome less likely.
The Bee’s final day
Melodie Loya is 12 years old. She is a small, quiet girl from New York. She was one of the 40 spellers who made it to the final rounds on Thursday.
Melodie, who is home-schooled, said she studied up to four hours each day to prepare for the national bee.
“I like with spelling that every word is made of roots, so certain languages are spelled a certain way and I think that’s really cool.”
She covered the walls of her bedroom with the words she misspelled while preparing.
Melodie made it to the sixth round of competition. Fewer than 30 spellers remained. Then, the bee’s pronouncer, Bailly, asked her to spell the word "subauditur."
Melodie took her time. She asked Bailly all the permitted questions: language of origin, definition, part of speech, and alternate pronunciations.
Then, she began to spell.
“S-U-B-A-U-D-I-T-
She paused before continuing.
“-O-R.”
A bell rang, signifying the spelling was incorrect. Melodie said “thank you” and walked off the stage to the area where competitors who have lost wait for their parents. Television cameras capture it all up close. Melodie’s eyes filled with tears as she hugged her mother.
Rohan Sachdev, 14, was the next speller up after Melodie’s dismissal. It was his second time competing at nationals. But he said it was his third year to attend the event.
“I was here in the sixth grade, and then last year my brother beat me in the county and so I still came here…I still knew much more than my brother, it’s just I got a tougher word than him. But he’s a pretty good speller, too.”
Sachdev easily made it through round six, and then round seven and eight. And by Thursday afternoon, he was one of 15 spellers left. He finished Thursday night in a tie for 12th place.
The American sports network ESPN carried the final spelling rounds live, just as they do with major sports events. The hashtag #SpellingBee trended on social media.
ESPN’s bee experts had not predicted Ananya Vinay’s win. They favored Texan Shourav Dasari as victor. He was one of four spellers remaining Thursday night when he got the word “Mogollon.”
Without asking Bailly for any information about the word, Shourav spelled "Mogollon" (an ancient civilization in southern North America) in just six seconds. He then returned to his seat before officials even announced he was right.
Social media users said the moment was "more exciting than anything in the NBA finals" -- the final round of the National Basketball Association championship, which was broadcast live on another network at the same time as the National Spelling Bee.
Later, though, Shourav misspelled “struldbrug,” a type of immortal creature Jonathan Swift invented in his novel Gulliver’s Travels. It has no recognizable roots or language patterns.
The bell rang, signaling the end of Shourav's final year of bee eligibility.
“I was honestly, absolutely shocked. It was stunning,” former speller Jacob Williamson said. “Shourav is one of the greatest spellers of all time, and he’s probably the best speller that never won."
AP contributed to this report.
Please leave a comment here, and visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, thanks!
See all News Updates of the Day
International students may be able to get jobs at school
International students studying in the United States may be able to work on campus.
Jobs can include working in libraries, labs, food service and dormitories – but students will have to research the rules before applying for jobs, according to U.S. News & World Report. (September 2024)
Report says college rankings have the potential to mislead
Each year, prominent lists of college and university rankings are compiled and released to the public, but a report conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago says those rankings have the potential to mislead.
Writing in Forbes, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier says changing methodologies can distort results, and profit motives can create doubt. He argues that rankings should be replaced by an objective rating system. (September 2024)
College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
- By VOA News
Bloomberg Philanthropies says investment in low-income students fell short
More than $140 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charitable programs have been spent getting talented low-income students into top colleges, but an analysis of those programs found they fell short of goals.
The Wall Street Journal took a look at the programs, their objectives, and how they haven’t led to the results Bloomberg Philanthropies wanted to see. (September 2024)
- By VOA News
Music students find community through 'international chat' program
State University of New York at Fredonia is trying a new method to help international music students feel at home.
A professor at the school hosts informal chats -- known as "international chat" -- several times a semester. The goal, the school says in an article, is to function "as a study group session for international students facing challenges that are unique to international students."
Read the full story here. (October 2024)
