With heavy hearts, we regret to inform our National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) community that the Consortium for Ocean Leadership (COL) Board of Trustees and Voting Members voted in early July to dissolve COL as an organization. COL will effectively close on September 30, 2022.

What does this mean for the NOSB? The good news is that the NOSB is being transferred to another nonprofit organization with a similar mission. By October, the new home of the NOSB will be the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). UCAR has education programs and resources with the goal of building the nation’s workforce capabilities across the STEM fields and beyond. By accepting COL’s programs, they hope to further build their ocean science research and education portfolio.

Given this organizational transition, and the fundraising challenges the NOSB program has faced over the past several years, the NOSB staff have made the decision to take the 2022-2023 academic year off from competition. Therefore, the NOSB national office will not support any 2023 regional competitions and there will be no national Finals . We will take this opportunity to re-imagine the program into something that maintains our regional host partnerships and meets the current, still valid goals of the NOSB, but results in a stronger competition that can excite our full range of stakeholders. After 25 years, this is necessary. Once the NOSB is thoroughly housed at UCAR, staff will be seeking input from our community of sponsors, regional coordinators, alums, coaches, volunteers, and students as we restructure the program.

We ask for your patience as we work through a really challenging situation, not just for the NOSB, but for the staff personally. While we know our community will be disappointed in the lack of competition in 2023, we hope you will support us and this opportunity to build a stronger program for the next 25 years.