by Willy Nichter, Staff Writer
At 8:00 p. m. on Tuesday, October 24, Crawford Hall was transformed into Hogwarts’ Great Hall for Drew University’s first Harry Potter Trivia Night. The event was coordinated by Student Activities, and run by one professor and three coordinators. Each of them were dressed as iconic professors from Hogwarts.
“Kerry and Steph do trivia nights in the Pub,” said Kristin Bruno who was dressed as Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall and is the Senior Events Coordinator for Conferences and Events. “They came up with the idea for Harry Potter trivia, and I’m the person you go to for event planning. I joined in on the planning fun,” Bruno continued.
Alongside Bruno were the aforementioned Steph Mazzarella and Kerry Klug, as well as Professor Jill Cermele of the Psychology Department. “There’s a DSEM that’s dedicated to Harry Potter,” said Mazzarella, Program Coordinator of Student Engagement who was dressed as Potions Master Severus Snape, “so we worked with Jill Cermele. She encouraged her class to come, and she’s coming, so we sorta did a little co-sponsorship with them.”
“What we’re doing is focusing in the ways that Harry Potter can teach us about various psychological issues,” said Professor Cermele, dressed as Dolores Umbridge and talking about her class “Psychology of Harry Potter”.
For the occasion, Crawford Hall was decked out with several Harry Potter posters, including advertisements for Ollivander’s Wand Shop, the Three Broomsticks Pub, and the Leaky Cauldron Tavern. And of course, there were house banners over the four house tables. Walking into the room, students were greeted by Klug, Coordinator of Campus Recreation, in his costume as half-giant Rubeus Hagrid. Each student drew a card from the Sorting Hat to determine their house and was given a homemade wand to twirl and play with throughout the event.
After an initial celebration featuring pizza and butterbeer, the event began, with students pairing or tripling off into small teams within their houses. There were six categories of questions, and each question was worth 100 points unless stated otherwise.
“Myself and Snape put the questions together,” said Klug. He went on to say that they used a great deal of their knowledge, with supplemental information gathered from the internet. “I did a bunch that were way too hard, because I love Harry Potter, but we have a good mix now,” said Mazzarella.
As the game began, the students were quite excited and prepared to claim victory, as well as the Harry Potter gift basket that was being offered as a prize for first place. “I don’t want to get too cocky, but I am confident enough I can flaunt my knowledge,” said Megan Vu (’20), who was seated at Ravenclaw. MJ Velton (’19), a Slytherin, was no less confident. When asked about how she would feel if she won, she said, “You mean when I win? All the points to Slytherin.”
The question categories were as follows; Ordinary Wizarding Levels, which were general trivia questions, What’s that Spell, where students had to spell out the name of the given spell, Hogwarts Adulting 101, which contained questions about the various Hogwarts professors and Film Trivia, where students had to name the movie based on the scene given. The category Muggle Trivia, contained questions related to Harry Potter that came from sources other than the books and films. The final category was called NEWT, in this category students were asked to name all of Voldemort’s horcruxes, gaining 700 bonus points if the did so in order.
Some questions were simple such as, name the head of house for Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw or spelling the more well-known spells. Other questions were more obscure, such naming the Astronomy and Arithmancy professors, who were hardly ever named in the books.
In the end, not a single team scored lower than 6700. Two teams, one from Hufflepuff one from Ravenclaw, tied for first with 8100 points. Slytherin was the house with the highest average score of 7025.
Vu was among the winners from Ravenclaw, along with Sam Hecker (’20), Shanjida Khan (’20), and others. After claiming their prizes, the three named members settled down for several pictures with the Sorting Hat, before leaving Crawford Hall prizes in hand.
