The SamfordSecret exhibit will be open in the library through Nov. 30.

Library director, university officials and project organizers put secrets exhibit back on schedule

By: Lauren Womack

Posted: 11/18/09

When the SamfordSecret display was covered with brown paper and a "Coming Soon" sign during Homecoming, some students raised questions concerning censorship.

Organizers and supporters of the project said the exhibit was not covered to hide Samford's "dirty laundry" or to protect the university from criticism but for many other reasons.
For starters, the exhibit was never on schedule to be open during Homecoming, University Library Director Kim Herndon said.

"According to our policy, you have an official start date when the exhibit can go up. We let Jonathan and Andrew go ahead and put it up at the beginning of the month, but the official start date was actually on Monday, Nov. 9," she said. Herndon said one of the reasons that the project's display date was set for the Monday after Homecoming was so that it did not distract from the "Live at the Library" event, which took place during that weekend.

"A lot of time is put in to Live at the Library," Herndon said. "We didn't want to take away from an event that we were already planning to hold here during Homecoming."

The SamfordSecret organizers, senior spanish major Andrew Crosson and senior interior design major Jonathan Haas, said that, although they would have liked to leave the exhibit up, they were willing to cover it for Homecoming weekend in order to ensure that it be displayed for the rest of the month.

"We just didn't want one parent or one donor coming up and saying 'I don't like this,'" Haas said. "I'm not saying that would have happened, but if it had, it would have completely ruined all of the work that we put in and the secrets that students submitted."

"Our biggest fear was that it would be taken down completely, then we would have nothing to show for it," Crosson said. "Everybody involved just decided that it would be best to offer a 'sneak peek' of the project, and then have it covered up during Homecoming."

Besides surface-level concerns, University Minister Matt Kerlin and SamfordSecret organizer Haas saw several other reasons to keep the project exclusive to current Samford students and faculty.

"SamfordSecret is what I've described as an 'internal memo,'" Kerlin said. "It's just not the kind of thing that people coming back to Samford with their families are going to really understand. It's part of an on-going community conversation, so it didn't make much sense to have it up during Homecoming."

"Although this is a community - wide project, it is also very private. This is the Samford community pretty much pouring itself out there," Haas said. "Keeping it within the Samford community, where people can understand and react appropriately to it, has its merits."

Kerlin also emphasized that the SamfordSecret project is very context-specific.

"For people to walk into the library, out of the clear blue, not having been on Samford's campus in 20 years, with no context, they're not going to get it. It could lead people to be disturbed or upset or not to understand what we're doing," he said. "With no one really there to explain it to them, it was just the wisest thing to do to wait to open the display in full after Homecoming."

Now that Homecoming is over, the SamfordSecret display is in full swing, with four display boards in the library nearly filled with postcard secrets. So far, those involved with the project say the responses have been "overwhelmingly positive."

"It's good that we're kind of exposing what everyone knows people struggle with and not trying to hide it," Kerlin said. "It's showing that the Samford bubble is somewhat of a myth, that there are all kinds of problems here that we don't talk about, that there's real human brokenness."

Tomorrow, Crosson and Haas will lead a SamfordSecret Convo in Reid Chapel, where they will tell students and faculty about the project.

"They're going to explain what the project is, where they got the idea, why they're doing it and what they hope to accomplish with it," Kerlin said. "They're going to show some of the more interesting, provocative postcards, some of the more Convo-appropriate cards, on the large screen, and they are going to ask the audience some questions of the audience about what those secrets say about Samford."

Additionally, there will be an "open mic" time at the end of the Convo, and organizers will invite students to share a secret in front of the audience.

"When the original creator of PostSecret travels the country and speaks, he always concludes his presentation by giving people an opportunity to go to the mic and share a secret," Kerlin said. "It's a risky thing to do at Samford."