Cosgrove Addresses Hissing at Assembly

When Ross Baird ‘03 reached the end of his talk during assembly last Friday, he was met with hissing from the audience. In what has become a common practice at Exeter, students often hiss at the end of assembly if other members of the audience, particularly lowerclassmen, try to leave before “Senior Class” has been called. The unintended consequence, however, can be confusion and upset for the assembly speaker, as was the case for Baird.As Baird concluded his lecture, it was unclear whether students were hissing because members of the prep class had stood up to leave or because he had announced an imminent assembly check. The noise visibly unsettled the speaker and he trailed off mid-sentence to look around the room. “What? Oh, not me. I think that we have an assembly check coming up which is why you’re hissing,” he remarked, openly acknowledging the behavior.Dean of Residential Life A.J. Cosgrove addressed the incident and his broader concerns about the tradition of hissing at assembly in an email to all students the following Tuesday. “Although the intention was not to embarrass [Baird] or show a lack of respect, in the moment, this is what he experienced. There have been other times when hissing has happened at assembly. It bothers people. It doesn’t reflect well on us as a community. Please stop this behavior,” he wrote. Cosgrove also included a message he had received from a student expressing dismay at the hissing and asking for it to be addressed. “I think it is extremely disrespectful and frankly embarrassing that this is the message Exeter wants to send about itself,” the student wrote.Baird commented afterwards that he, being an Academy alumnus himself, had not been offended by the hissing, but suggested that the situation might have played out differently for other speakers. “I had forgotten about that tradition of hissing when people left early, and it was a little off-putting when it happened when I was on stage,” he said. “When I quickly remembered the tradition, I didn’t personally mind, but I can see how the hissing activity would come off as confusing and somewhat disrespectful to a guest of the Academy who wasn't an alum, even if it's not the intent. I’d recommend Exonians stop this particular activity as it could be unintentionally insulting to our guests.”Prep Bona Hong expressed that hissing can be upsetting not only to guests, but also to students targeted by the behavior. She recalled her own discomfort at the Opening Assembly where it is an annual custom for upperclassmen to hiss at the new prep class who have yet to learn that they must wait to leave until an official dismissal has been given. “It felt like we were being mocked, at least for me. I'm guessing it would have been even worse for the speaker—to be hissed at by students after giving a lecture or a presentation,” she said. Upper Lizzie Madamidola elaborated on the negative atmosphere that hissing can promote. “I think this tradition should stop because hissing creates this hierarchy between senior classmen and freshmen. I can see how it could be a form of hazing,” she said. Many students agreed, including senior Anzi Debenedetto who appreciated how Cosgrove’s email called attention to behavior Debenedetto described as “a pretty toxic tradition.”Some students claimed that the well-meaning intentions of the hissing sufficiently justified the behavior. “I don’t think hissing is nearly as big of an issue as [Dean Cosgrove] is saying it is,” senior Alexis Lee said. “I’m not sure how seriously we take it now, but the reason why people hiss in the first place is to express disapproval towards people who are trying to leave assembly early. It is equally as disrespectful to the speaker to leave assembly early as it is to be hissing.” She explained that any misunderstandings on the part of the speaker could be easily resolved with a simple explanation.Others voiced that good intentions are not enough to justify a tradition that can still reflect negatively on Exeter’s community atmosphere. “It shows that we're a very cutthroat environment—we’re very strict about respecting people,” senior Brian Rhee commented. “Ironically, we’re not being very respectful by hissing at people.”Madamidola suggested that the community find a more polite and less controversial way of confronting students who show disrespect to the speaker by leaving assembly early. “We hiss because someone’s doing something wrong. When you disagree with something at the Harkness table, you don't do something like that—you correct them respectfully,” she said.Regardless of whether they consider the behavior to be acceptable, students agreed that a tradition that has spanned so many years at the Academy will not be so easily discontinued. "I think this tradition will stop gradually, if we continue raising awareness about it and how it impacts other people's feelings," senior Anzi Debenedetto said. "I doubt anyone on this campus is actually trying to go out and hurt other people and make assembly speakers uncomfortable. It's just that when everyone's doing it, people join in." Rhee described the tradition as a cycle. "We learn from our role models. It would be super hard to stop the tradition of hissing because I learned from it really quickly when I was a prep," he said. "The seniors when we were preps would hiss, so we learned to do the same.”