Throughout the past few weeks I’ve gone out of my way to track down people and organizations that create an environment for healthy discussions about politics, education, and everything else that is a concern to the American population. What I stumbled upon was the Connecticut Forum.

 

 

The Connecticut Forum is a non-profit organization that was founded sixteen years ago in 1992. Their mission: “To encourage the free and active exchange of ideas in Forums that inform, challenge, entertain, inspire, and build bridges among people and organizations in our community.”  This is exactly what was emphasized when I spoke with Meredith Elgart, a senior associate with the Forum, who expressed such enthusiasm and passion about all that the Forum has brought to Connecticut.

 

 

Over the past few years the Connecticut Forum has brought in renowned expert and celebrities to partake as panelists in unscripted discussion on topics that vary from Death and Dying to Global Affairs, Race relations to Values and Ethics in Today’s America. Topics that take an unfiltered course that begins with questions from the panel moderator then trickle down to the end when the audience themselves can submit their own questions in hope to reveal a new insight on topics from these various guests. Guests in past Forums have included Al Franken, Ann Coulter, Arianna Huffington, Morley Shaffer, Ralph Nader, Dan Quayle, Chuck D., Arthur Ashe and countless others.

 

 

The Forums are held a few times a year each one tackling a new topic discussion. But this is not only what the Forum does; the Forum also tries to reach out to kids across Connecticut in a bold and exciting way. The Connecticut Forum has an offspring called the Connecticut YOUTH Forum. This organization has brought together 40 high schools to create an old fashion kind of social networking group, unlike the MySpace and facebook of today, this brings together teens to discuss what affects them, face to face. Each month a different high school hosts a meeting open to all youth forum members new and old, to discuss “topics such as stereotypes, relationships, music, power, and social change. Meetings are opportunities’ for young people to enlarge their worlds by visiting each other’s schools and connecting with youth they might not otherwise meet.” (ctforum.org)  

 

 

On February 9, I attended a Forum presentation in Hartford entitled “The American Dream….Going, Going, Gone?” its panelists included Barbara Ehrenriech, author of Nickel and Dimed, Roland Fryer, Harvard Economist, Collaborator on Freakonomics, and Laura Ingraham, Radio Talk Show Host and author, with moderator Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent for The News Hour on PBS; all gathered to discuss questions upon the pursuit, desire, and demise of the American dream.

 

 

Prior to the opening of the Forum I was invited to an event that the YOUTH Forum gets to engage in, which is their own press conference with the panelists. Here a handful of high school students sat in a circular formation with two of the three panelists and the moderator of the event. The high school students sat anxiously across from Ehrenriech, Fryer, and Suarez, and were able to ask the panelists the first question of the night before anyone else was able to get a shot at them. Many of the questions asked focused a lot on education and the achievement gap among different schools in various towns and the factor of race being an issue between success and failure in the school systems. After the press conference the members of the YOUTH Forum get to attend the event for free. Tickets for the event range between 20 and 50 dollars, but the Forum does  what it can to get all demographics in attendance and has a ticket outreach program; which through support from various sponsors make it possible to offer tickets to community organizations and high schools.

 

 

As a first timer in attendance to one of the Forum’s, well, Forums, I found it to be an awesome experience and would recommend everyone see one of the discussions firsthand. The pitfalls would be the prices of the tickets, I found not a very good demographic was represented in the crowd. A question was polled in the audience about the average yearly income they receive, and I’ll just say I was the only person there living on the poverty line, way under the 100,000 annual income of the majority of the audience. Other than the YOUTH Forum members in attendance I noticed a lack of racial diversity in the crowd. Being only my first time, I could not compare the topic to others that have been discussed and their ability to bring in various people who would partake in such events. In other words a discussion of the American Dream may aim to another audience as to which a topic of children, race, technology, business, and politics may aim to another kind of audience.

 

 

Overall, discovering this outlet for open discussion in Connecticut was a breath of fresh air. From the people involved to the topics discussed it was refreshing to know that there are people  out there who care deeply about the world, their future, and the future of the world; who take it upon themselves to support and develop an organization that wants to make a difference.