Sarah McCleskey, Hofstra librarian/vice dean, competes on 'Jeopardy!'

A Hofstra University librarian and vice dean parlayed her background in Classical languages, archaeology and politics to reach second place on the venerable TV quiz show “Jeopardy!” Tuesday night.

Sarah McCleskey, 60, vice dean of the Hempstead school’s library, earned $3,300. She had gone up against Nabil Rahman, a government employee originally from Queens, who made $1,625, and returning champion Adam Remsen, a Memphis, Tennessee, attorney and theater producer, who entered the episode with two-day winnings of $35,801 and left with another $21,800.

Her silver-place finish notwithstanding, “It's very helpful being a librarian since you know a little bit about a lot of things,” she said. The North Carolina native, who has been with Hofstra’s library since 2004, rose to vice dean two years ago. “So I think my background did help me prepare to be on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” She first applied in 2006 and kept at it for two decades until getting a call in March to compete in April at the show’s Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California.

In the three weeks she had, "I bought a bunch of index cards and made flash cards with subjects on them that come up pretty frequently, like opera and the history of science. I also bought a chart of the periodic table and stuck it up on the wall of my living room along with a world map with capitals and a U.S., map with states and capitals. I studied those and did a lot of online quizzes."

And she reinforced the hierarchy of the human mind over artificial intelligence. "So I used ChatGPT," she said. "I would say, ‘Ask me some questions about opera’ or ‘some questions about the planets.’ And there were things where it actually gave me the wrong answer and would tell me, ‘Oh, no, you were wrong.’ And I'm, like, ‘Oh, no, actually I was right.’ And then ChatGPT would be, like, ‘Oh, I see. Yes. In fact, you were right.’ So you have to be careful."
McCleskey also practiced for what many "Jeopardy!" contestants say is one of the trickiest things to do well: not hit the buzzer too soon in addition to too late. For this, she rehearsed with a toilet paper roll, using it "like a clicker. I got that advice from my colleague, Lisa Dresner," a Hofstra associate professor of writing studies and rhetoric, who had competed on the show in December 2021 as part of the Professors Tournament.

McCleskey, the middle of three children, had grown up watching "Jeopardy!" with her maternal grandparents, who lived near her parents Lawrence McCleskey, a Methodist bishop, and Margaret McCleskey, a teacher and later a development officer, "back when Art Fleming was the host!"

Initially considering becoming an attorney, she received a double-major degree in Latin and politics from Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia, then went on to earn a master’s degree in Classical archaeology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

While studying there, "I got a graduate assistantship working in the library at UNC Chapel Hill and I loved it so much that I decided to go to library school," graduating with a master of library and information science (M.L.I.S.) degree from that college in 1997. Going on to a library job there and later at South Carolina’s Clemson University, Sarah McCleskey joined Hofstra as head of resource and collection services in August 2004.

Part of the reason she sought work in the Northeast, she said, was to marry a Manhattan man she had met in graduate school. Following their divorce, McCleskey is now wed to Courtney Selby, associate dean for library services and professor of legal research at St. John’s University School of Law in Queens. The couple lives in Astoria.

Despite coming in second, McCleskey's time on “Jeopardy!” “was a wonderful experience. The staff at the show were great and the other contestants were really nice.” It all helped her not to be nervous, she said. “I just kind of went with the flow and decided whatever happens is going to happen. So I really didn't get nervous. I just had a good time.”