Student housing royal court on Florida A&M University’s campus partnered with Anquinette Taylor, a third year public relations student from Orlando, Fla., held the “Love Chronicles: love and relationships” panel discussion for the student body Monday night in preparation for Valentine’s Day this upcoming weekend.
The panel consisted of seven panelists: three in relationships (with two out of those three being engaged to each other), two homosexuals that previously got out of a relationship and two who have been single for a great amount of time.
The panel didn’t limit the topics discussed and included every type of intimate relationship from monogamous relationships, to same sex relationships and marriage. Among these topics, the panelists also talked about long distance relationships and maintaining a relationship while in college.
Floide Shelly, an alumnus of FAMU who was one of the panelists at this event said, “The key to maintaining a relationship while coming to college is trust and communication. Trust! If you’ve been dating him since high school and you guys come to college you should be able to trust him. That’s the problem we suffer from.”
Shelly, who is now married to his high school sweetheart, felt that this topic was relevant to discuss to the student body because “a lot of college students come to college looking for love and looking for that person to spend the rest of their life with,” Shelly stated.
Breonna Jefferson, a first year chemistry student from Jacksonville, Fla. struggled with getting the advice from panelist due to a lot of crowd interference, but she liked the subject of the panel and felt that it was relevant to college students because “students come to find their soulmate in college,” said Jefferson.
Some of the students in the audience shared stories about their previous or current relationships. One student talked about her friend being in a long distance relationship and how it didn’t work out. She didn’t believe that long-distance relationships would work out.
One of the male panelists disagreed and said that it can work, it would just be a tough job. The panelists told everyone to keep three things in mind when getting into a relationship: have trust, communication and chemistry.
Taylor, who helped put on the event, left the crowd with some encouraging words.
“Everyone had a lot of different stories and opinions, but we all said one word–chemistry. You can’t have a strong relationship if you don’t have chemistry. We can give you all this advice but it is all about whatever works for you and your significant other.”