Frequently Asked Questions

Currently, our biggest problem is funding. There are other problems, of course, but funding is our most pressing issue. Do you have any suggestions. Also, how can we handle our funds?

Funding seems to be almost everyone's biggest problem. It costs a lot of money to send a team to World Finals. A good estimate is $1,000 per team member and coach. This will vary depending upon how far a team is located from World Finals. Division IV teams have approached this from many different angles, but the best long-range strategy is to convince your college or university to pay. You will need to find someone with budget authority to put it as a line item in this budget. The budget can be a part of student activities, an academic department, or even from the president's special project's account. You will need first to convince the administration of the worth of your endeavor to the school. A good strategy is to point out how much is spent on athletic competitions and remind the school that academic competitions are just as valid.

We picked a problem and meeting time. Now I need your advice, where do I go from here?

The next step is to register your team so that you can get the complete problem definitions and then get in contact with your Association Director so that you can participate in Regional and Association Tournaments. You will also need to find a funding source.

Our budget is supposed to include any and all expenses we expect to need for the year. I have checked on the OM homepage and I am unable to find any estimate of the costs to travel to Florida and compete in World Finals. I was wondering if you had access to any estimates of the 1998 competition costs or where I might be able to find them.

The housing costs for teams will be $489 per person for Tuesday through Saturday and $401 per person to stay from Wednesday through Saturday. Plane fares will vary according to distance travelled. The housing cost includes admission to all Disney attractions.

We have created a home page and were wondering if we could have it linked to the Div. 4 page somehow.

Send your home page address to Jake Willis at [email protected]. He will create a link.

A few friends and I are now at college and we want to form a team. The only problem is that we are at three or four different colleges. I need some info on how to get our team going and who to talk to at our colleges to get them to become members.

Teams can consist of students from different colleges. All colleges must maintain a membership and the team can compete under any of those memberships.

I am a professor and am interested in sponsoring an OM organization on our campus. Could you please provide me with information on how to get started?

You need to become the OM advocate on your campus. You must locate funds, because that is always the biggest problem. Once you have figured out a way to finance a team, then recruit students through e-mail or through student activities. What we have done at Sierra Nevada College is make OM a course in the Science Department. This way, students sign up for the course. How many problems we participate in depends upon how many students are interested in the course and how much money we have allocated each year. Normally, we have 5-7 students and enter in one problem competition.

What I want to know is how do I go about getting registered and who pays for stuff like registration and if we do happen to go to Nationals, who would pay for that? Who do we need to contact here at the university to get started?

You need to find an advocate on campus. Someone with budget authority is best. This advocate will find the money to pay for registration and to finance a trip to the World Finals. If you cannot get your school to pay, then the team members will have to finance it themselves. As to who to contact, there are many different channels. You might start with the president and see who he or she recommends.

I attended your OM division 4 meeting at worlds last year. I was concerned about the world finals this year. I remember hearing that there is no state or regional competition for division four but only one team in each state per each problem can attend. I know that my school has 3 teams under one registration number and we are all working hard and hoping to go to worlds. Is there anything that we should do to guarantee that we would be able to compete?

All Division IV teams are eligible to participate in the World Finals. They need not participate in region or state competitions first, but it is highly recommended that they do so.

Would it be better to have like a small board of people to help me get this program under way?

The more advocates that you have on campus, the easier your job will be to get funding. By all means, try to get this help.

I have taken a job as Biology Instructor at a Community College. I am interested in starting a Division IV team at the College. My question is where do I begin

Begin by searching out a way to fund the program. You could think of proposing it as a course in your department as we have done at Sierra Nevada College. This way the funding is easier because it becomes a class expense. Other successful ways to fund it have been through student activities or directly through the president. Next you need to obtain a membership, team members and a coach.

I was wondering how you guys got funding the first year and I was also wondering if you actually had a year-to-year budget-I must say, it would be nice not to have to worry about fund-raising next year.

The first year of our participation was funded by some donations that I was able to secure from some benefactors of the college and from the president's budget. After that, I have had a line item in the Science Department budget, so I do not have to worry about fund raising.

Does the price for worlds include admission to all of the parks or just certain ones where the events take place?

Yes, admission to all of the parks is included.

We have already got official club status and we are now trying to convince the university to pay for our adventure. We have many possibilities and think that we may be able to get 100% funding from the funding board, if we can persuade them that OM is a true benefit. I was wondering if I could ask you for help? Could you possibly either email or mail me a letter as Div IV director explaining why they should be willing to pay for this.

I have forwarded your e-mail message to Linda Foster at OM headquarters and asked her to send you some brochures that we use for fund-raising. I think that this literature could be very helpful in convincing your funding board to support you.

The good things that OM has done for Sierra Nevada College are numerous. It teaches those involved team-work, problem solving skills, and critical thinking skills, all buzzwords that administrators like to hear. OM also allows those students involved to think divergently and be rewarded for this behavior. Our students use their OM participation as resume builders. I even can attest to one pre-med student who got into med school because of his OM involvement. He said that at his interview, there was much interest in this and OM is the only item that was discussed. The interviewer was not interested at all in the fact that he was on our national champion ski team for two years and was an academic all American both years.

The college displays its OM involvement and successes prominently in all of its promotional literature. Our trophies are on display at the library (and are much bigger than the ski trophies). Our administration is proud of the fact that we are successful in academic as well as athletic competitions. Our OM team gets a big spread every year in the local newspaper. They also do performances for the college community at large.

I was wondering if you could maybe send me information on how you made OM a class at your college.

I was able to get OM approved as a class very easily since I am chair of the Science Department here. I just brought the new course proposal before the faculty council and explained the benefits of the course. It is cross-listed as both an upper division (400 level) science course and teacher ed course. It satisfies a science elective. Therefore, our students are required to do a science problem each year. This year they are doing "Pageant Wagon". Our instructor gets paid for teaching (coaching) the course, the students pay for taking the course, and they get three units of credit. We select the problem and select the students. We put out an announcement in November and hold a recruiting and selection meeting. This year we had 15 try out for the team. We select them in November and the course is a spring semester course. Your idea of a J-term course sounds interesting. It would give them a head start. Our team always really struggles to get everything built before regionals in March. They must participate in regionals and states. This way they have some practice. The other advantage of having OM as a class is that now I just put the $6000 as a line item in my department budget to pay for the expenses of this class.

As it is written in the Rulebook each team must have one adult (18 years old or older) and responsibilities include recruiting, selecting and training team members. As a matter of fact, all our team members are over 18 years old and all of the coach's work we have done ourselves. We have prepared the long - term presentation, selected the members without any help and assistance from outside. Would you please let us know whether it is possible to take part in World Finals without the presence of the coach?

Each team must have at least one team member or coach who is over the age of 21 act as a chaperone for the team.

We would like to know if there is any date limit until which we should announce about our participation in the World Finals. Secondly when does the team receive the invitation for the World Finals?

Once a Division IV team is registered at OM, then a World Finals packet will be mailed to the team in the beginning of March. All registrations must be in and paid for by May 1.

Do we know yet when and/or where the 1999 competition will be?

If things work out well at Disney World this year, the World Finals will be there again next year. Otherwise, they will be in Knoxville, Tennessee at the University of Tennessee.

How would I go about getting the problems and all of the other information from OM headquarters? I am not sure of whom to contact for that portion of registering and getting the new problems when they come out later.

You can look at the OM web page at www.odyssey.org to get most information including a form to register your team. Once your team is registered then the new problems will be sent out to you beginning in September of each year.

I am very interested in helping with your efforts to expand Division IV competition. Please let me know how I can help.

Come to the Division IV meeting in Orlando on Saturday, May 29. We will be forming a steering committee.