The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate's Culture, Ethnicity, and Community Affairs (CECA) Committee has decided to expand its annual culture event, known in the past as Culture Fest, to a weeklong event with the goal of increasing campus awareness of diversity.
The event, which celebrates diversity and community on campus, has in previous years only lasted one day.
According to junior Nedghie Adrien, the chair of CECA, this year's event starting on April 11 will vary its theme daily to focus on different cultures in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands, South and Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
The week will incorporate lectures, discussions, student performances and activities, all with the goal of getting students more involved in the festival.
"We felt that Culture Fest always had the potential to be more than it was in the past and really wanted to make it more interactive so that students have the chance to learn something rather than just grab some ethnic food and a t−shirt," Adrien said.
The expansion of the cultural event coincides with a larger discussion about community and cultural diversity, which, according to TCU Vice President Antonella Scarano, has this year been a major theme in the Senate.
"This event coincides nicely with the bigger conversation on community representatives in the Senate, but it is not a response to the community representative issue," Scarano, a senior, said. "This has been on the table for a while and is something we are all excited to improve."
The Senate has been debating the issue of diversity representation in the body and reevaluating the role of community representatives.
Scarano believes there is a need to help culture groups engage with the wider Tufts community more often in order to promote diversity and cultural understanding.
"This is a great opportunity for a Tufts student who does not usually identify with one community to take away something from many different cultures different from their own," she said.
The event will feature activities like a soccer tournament on Fletcher Field, dance classes taught by the African music and dance group Tufts Kiniwe ensemble and student panels covering religion and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. There will also be a series of lectures such as "Island Talk," which will discuss the history of colonialism in the Caribbean.
"We wanted to follow the [Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) symposium] model where you have different lectures at different places all over campus so it would be more accessible to different populations at different times" Adrien said.
There will also be performances from student cultural groups, like the Vietnamese Students Club, African Student Organization, Caribbean Club and Tufts Hip Hop for Social Change.
Scarano feels that this year's event presents an opportunity for students to be directly involved with groups they would otherwise not have any interaction with.
"I really believe that students don't get involved because they don't know who to contact," she said. "It's much easier to get involved when you have a face to the name and have broken the ice. That's what we're trying to do — break the ice."
Sophomore MJ Murphy, the Pan−African Alliance's community representative to the Senate, explained that one of CECA's goals was to bridge different student groups and create the opportunity for cross−cultural communication and cooperation.
"So often people say in their application essays that they love learning about different cultures, but the reality is that people rarely step outside of their bubbles," Murphy said. "People are much more willing to hop on a plane to Chile than get involved with the Latino Center. They're willing to explore but not utilize the resources we have here."
Murphy has been working with sophomore Lisnerva Nuez, the Association of Latin American Students' representative to the Senate, to put together the event.
Scarano similarly noted that for an institution that actively promotes diversity, Tufts does not offer many venues for students to stretch their cultural boundaries in a fun and accessible way.
