To integrate Francis Marion University students and staff, four Resident Assistants organized the “Are You Smarter Than an RA?” event, which took place on Tuesday, Feb. 7 in the Heyward Community Center.

Resident Assistants Kayla Feaster, Amal Hall, Quinterra Middleton and Kristy Taylor organized the event, which was inspired by the television show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”.

Feaster came up with the idea to create a similar event with her own spin, in which the FMU staff would be involved.

The event was initially called “Are You Smarter Than an FMU Official?”, but due to difficulties, the event was renamed to “Are You Smarter Than an RA?”.

“We had some trouble getting FMU officials,” Feaster said. “The students will be surprised to know that the officials are actually students.”

This new campus event was an opportunity for students and RAs to step out of their comfort zones and get to know each other, according to the event organizers.

“It’s a good event because students can interact with RAs,” Feaster said.

Feaster also said that she and her fellow event organizers assigned students into groups instead of letting them choose their own in an effort to make the students team up with new people.

The game’s main rule was that people could not blurt out the answers.

The questions were organized under many different themes.  The FMU History category included a question about the year that FMU was established, while the Cartoon Trivia category featured a description of Tweety Bird that participants had to recognize.

The competitors also had to remember U.S. History during a question regarding the Declaration of Independence. For the Music Trivia category, the students had to listen to a song, name the artist and name the song.

The final theme was called Wild Cards, which randomly asked the color of the “M” in the McDonald’s logo.

For their efforts, all of the competitors received candy after the game.  The prevailing team won the title as the smarter group and bragging rights.

Many of the participants said that they were enthusiastic about the event, including sophomore English – Liberal Arts major Mauriah Jerkins.

“It was fun,” Jerkins said. “Our RA knew most of the questions.”

About 15 students attended the event to test their knowledge against the six participating RAs.