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Office of College Relations
Dr. Mary McCleod Bethune speaks to a group of attentive students during Crown Forum.
The year is unknown.
New Crowns, New Kings: A Truce
Crown Forum behavior is better this year than in the past
By Sidney Robbins
Editorial Columnist
I arrived ten minutes early
and sat in the front with my
freshman brothers. I waited
and watched, wondering if it
was going to be any different
this year. One gentleman
approached me and asked if
we had to sit in assigned seats
(apparently I was in his).
As the prelude began, an
improvisation on "Dear Old
Morehouse" by Henry Purcell,
I remember thinking how
appropriate it was. It was still
beautiful, somehow elegantly
capturing the spirit of its
predecessor in a new rhythm;
yet it sounded so different
from the original.
For the first Crown Forum
of 1998, it was indeed fitting.
Noise rose above the
song in chatter and laughter
the rest of the
upperclassmen were arriving.
My new colleagues, still
accustomed to the
atmosphere of Freshman
Orientation, turned in their
seats in disbelief. Why were
they making so much noise
after the program had
started? Why were so many
Morehouse men late to what
they said in orientation was
one of the most sacred events
of our institution? Where
were their ties?
I saw the questions in
their eyes. I had asked the
same ones two years ago. One
brother looked at me briefly,
still not understanding.
I whispered to him the
only thing I could think to say
in consolation for what the
noise had taken from him and
his fellow classmates — for the
upperclassmen's parts in
beginning to erase their belief
in Mays' Morehouse -- for
shattering the sacredness of
Crown Forum for them -- for
doing to them what had been
done to us in the same
assembly years ago by
upperclassmen.
I told him, "It's getting
better."
It wasn't a lie. Overall
Crown Forum behavior has
been better this year than the
previous two years. There is
still a hum of conversation
throughout the gathering, but
I have yet to hear the loud cat
calls, the rude comments to
speakers during their
addresses (and the whispered
apologies that the
administrator sitting next to
the speaker must continually
offer), or even that obnoxious
"uhhh" that is imitated
whenever a certain
administrator speaks.
For the most part,
students even wait until after
the speaker has concluded to
leave. Maybe it is getting
better.
Of course, there are the
yearly arguments that
behavior will improve with
the quality of speakers. They
cite the day Magic Johnson
spoke to a captive audience.
But I recall the instance when
Andrew Young was our guest:
at exactly 11:49, the student
body headed toward the exits
while he was still speaking.
Good speakers will not come
to Crown Forum to be
disrespected.
So, I write to present a
truce: Let's continue to
improve our cordiality (and
new students, please believe
this is an improvement) while
we continue to demand more
renowned speakers.
Crown Forum does not
have to be a six-day-a-week,
assigned-seat event as it once
was, but it should still be
special — it is still one of the
most sacred events of our
college.
Thursdays are “High School Forum” days at Morehouse
By Christopher Bryant
Contributing Writer
I usually try to go to sleep
during the highlight of every
Thursday at Morehouse
College, Crown Forum.
But as the Student Life
Editor of the Torch, the college
yearbook, I am required to
cover these assemblies, and
attend its stretched-out
sessions.
In years past, it seemed
that the college did not put
such a great emphasis on
staying awake during these
fifty-minute snooze-fests.
Now, Dean Gaffney says that
we shouldn't even study
during the time we spend
listening to the soporific
student speeches at the forum.
Administrators call us
"young men" and "boys" at
these gatherings and we are
never really taught that this
place is nothing like the real
world. When I left school and
had to get a J-O-B, so that I
could rejoin my "well-taken-
care-of" brothers at the House,
no one would stop by my desk
and offer to refresh my
memory of my responsibilities
on the job.
I know that most of my
Morehouse brothers have
been baby-sat most of their
lives in parochial schools and
in the back seats of their
parent's Volvos. Yet, in a
world of reality that we will
all be subjected to eventually,
there is no room for trying to
spend time teaching grown
men to be quiet during a
meeting. Nor should they be
given instructions on where to
go sign their promissory notes
if it happens to slip from their
memories.
Furthermore, the speakers
humiliate us by telling us how
disappointed in our behavior
they are. Who cares?
If these "boys" do not
learn to grow up soon they
will eventually have to leave
school because
they are not
serious enough to
handle college life.
The college is not
doing these young
men any favors by
treating them like
boys once a week.
"Pizza blasts"
and oratory
contests are what we did in
high school. Plus, the only
students that get out of line at
Crown Forum will behave that
way in any public arena
because of their immaturity.
Perhaps, if we told all the
restless students who filter in
late that they do not have to
come, then we could spend
more time in Crown Forum
focusing on student concerns,
academic problems, and social
issues.
We need to do away with
all the "kite-flying" rhetoric
that characterizes Crown
Forum. We should strive
toward building a stronger
foundation for a gathering of
student fellowship, rather
than spending fifty minutes in
"in-house detention," putting
up with slander from a staff
that works for the same
student body that they are
persecuting at 11:00 a.m. every
Thursday.
in a world of reality that we will
all be subjected to eventually,
there is no room for trying to
spend time teaching grown men
to be quiet during a meeting.
