A team of students from La Quinta High School emerged as winner from a field of 13 Coachella Valley high schools during the 11th annual Academic WorldQuest competition at Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert Campus on Dec. 10.
Team members included Aditha Parvatharajan, Jensen Roe, Shivam Patel, Diego Valdez, alternate Walter Vong, as well as team coach Justin Klockenteger. Palm Desert High School and Rancho Mirage High School captured second and third place, respectively. Scholarships were awarded to each student in the top three teams: 1st place $300, 2nd place $200 and 3rd place $100.
The La Quinta High School team will move on to compete against other high school teams throughout the country in the National Academic WorldQuest Competition to be held in Washington, D.C. in April 2016.
Sponsored by World Affairs Council of the Desert, Academic WorldQuest is a team game which challenges the competitors’ knowledge of world affairs. The topics this year included International Trade & Finance, Privacy in the Digital Age, the Arctic, Organization of American States and Great Decisions. Bianca Rae, morning anchor at KESQ News Channel 3, served as mistress of ceremony.
This year’s competing high schools also included Cathedral City, Coachella Valley, Desert Hot Springs, Desert Mirage, Indio, Palm Springs, Palm Valley, Shadow Hills, West Shores and Xavier College Prep. President of World Affairs Council of the Desert, Guido Portante presented each student with certificates of recognition from the office Congressman Raul Ruiz.
Doris Wilson, associate dean at CSUSB Palm Desert Campus, chaired the event, with assistance from Charles and Priscilla Porter, Sabra Besley, Tom Headrick, Rebecca Simpson, Guido Portante, Karen Speros, Gordon Kramer, Regina Garrison and 28 volunteers from the World Affairs Council of the Desert. Event sponsors included The Cypress Group, a division of Integrated Wealth Management, as the Presenting Sponsor, Palm Springs Life as the Platinum Sponsor and Desert Lexus and Renaissance Indian Wells Resort & Spa as Gold Ambassadors.
Located in beautiful Palm Desert, the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus offers bachelor and master’s degrees, a doctorate degree in educational leadership, and teacher credentials and certificates. With more than 1,200 students, it is the only four-year public university in the Coachella Valley and plays a vital role in educating and training the region’s growing population.
For more information about the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus, contact Mike Singer in the campus’s Office of Public Affairs at msinger@csusb.edu or 760-341-2883, ext. 78107 or visit the campus website.