Yellow caution tape divided Lumpkin Hall Auditorium with men on one side and women on the other at Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity’s forum on Monday.

As students walked into the gender divided auditorium, the women of The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs represented for the purple team and the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity represented for the gold team as they all participated in a “Battle of the Sexes.”

With a “Jeopardy” and “Family Feud” inspired theme, the ladies of the purple team and the men of the gold team played rock-paper-scissors to decide who got to pick their category first.

“Relationships for 100,” the women of the purple team yelled as the infamous “Jeopardy” music played.

Phillip Love, president of Alpha Phi Alpha, said the organization is willing to collaborate with other organizations to make it fun, which is why they collaborated with the ladies of NACWC.

Angela Davis, vice president of NACWC, said she wanted to collaborate with the fraternity because she thought the event would be successful and fun.

Davis and Justin Earls, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, came up with the idea.

Both agreed that the lack of knowledge people have about the opposite sex is the reason they had the forum.

Davis and Earls also said they believe that it is something to bring the crowd out as well as make Eastern students participate because of the climate on campus.

“The fact that males and females don’t know their counterparts of the opposite sex should be a good enough reason to come out to support (and) learn more,” Earls said.

N’Keyah Taylor, a senior health administration major, said she enjoyed participating in the forum. She said she was happy to contribute to the winning team.

“I actually thought it was going to be informative, I did not expect a game,” Taylor said.

Keeping close score as each team picked from four categories on the Jeopardy

Board, the categories ranged from relationships, appearance, after hours, slang words and sports.

The categories about relationships and after hours got the crowd excited as they laughed at the questions asked. One question for the slang category was, “When someone says something hilarious, you usually respond by saying these words?” As each team deliberated, one representative from each team came forth to quickly press the buzzer before the opposing team. The answer was, “ I’m weak/I’m dead.” Davis said the crowd participation was a success.

The purple team swept the board, leaving the gold team putting all their earnings on the last and final deal breaker question. The final Battle of the Sexes question asked the year Eastern was founded. The gold team said 1865,which was incorrect, so they ended up giving all their points to the purple team. The ladies of the purple team beat the men on the gold team 6,750 to zero.

Khayla Kelley-Morton, a sophomore family and consumer sciences major, said she came out to support an African-American event.

Love said the purpose of the forum was to increase the knowledge of the two genders with gender-related questions.

“When you leave this event you should really think, I need to know more about the opposite sex,” Love said.

Although there were no physical prizes awarded to the winning team, Love said, the real prize is knowledge gained.

He said he is happy that students came out and supported the event.

Asia Hall can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]