Morgan State students would rather say “goodbye” than “hello” to the key speaker of the first convocation of the semester and black history month.
For reasoning beyond the knowledge of some Morgan students, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was selected to speak at the Parren J. Mitchell-Benjamin A. Quarles African-American History Month convocation.
Students like sophomore Joy Barnes isn’t happy at all about Rawlings-Blake speaking at convocation.
“I feel like she does not care about her constituents. In the, past four years she has done barely the minimum to improve the quality of life for the people of this city,” said Barnes.
The speakers at convocation are typically nominated by various departments on campus such as the commencement committee, the president, the provost, the Board of Regents, Deans, and students.
Vice President of Student Affairs Kevin Banks has great reason that Rawlings-Blake would be chosen to speak at the convocation.
“From my perspective, she is a public leader in a major U.S. City that is dealing with some major issues. She is the current president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and serves as the secretary of the Democratic National Committee,” said Banks.
“She is the daughter of the late Senator Rawlings, who graduated from MSU, and was instrumental in Maryland politics and the growth of Morgan, which Rawlings Hall is named after. To me, that would deem her worthy to be selected as a speaker.”
Even though administration believes that she is a worthy candidate to speak here at convocation there are still some hard feelings on how Rawlings-Blake handled the riots that followed Freddie Gray’s death.
“Why should I trust anything she has to say about black history given the way she’s treated the community during the uprising, just the general neoliberal attitude towards black people in Baltimore,” said sophomore Jeremy Collins.
The Parren J. Mitchell-Benjamin A. Quarles African-American History Month convocation is Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016 at 11 a.m., located in the James H. and Louise Halley Gilliam Concert Hall in the Carl J. Murphy Fine Arts Center.
