Embracing Hispanic heritage month
“We want to recognize students’ different heritages and let them know that we support them, but the main reason we celebrate months like this one is to raise awareness for the community and students,” said Yves-Rose SaintDic, director of the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.
The Institutional Equity and Diversity center partnered with the Black Student Alliance, the Douglass Theatre and the Latino Student Alliance to put on the central events for the celebration: the Black & Brown Unity Forum and the “Platanos and Collard Greens” play. Both events were on Friday, Oct. 3 in Macon.
The Black & Brown Unity Forum was a seven hour conference that featured keynote speaker, Louis “Pancho” McFarland. The forum focused on raising Latino and black leaders for their respective college campuses as well as building unity between Latinos and black people.
GCSU students attended the conference along with students from Augusta State, University of Georgia, Gainesville College, Kennesaw State, Georgia State, and University of West Georgia.
“The mission was to empower students by giving them the skills and resources they needed to develop and/or sustain active student groups on their campus and in their community,” said Nadirah Ross, the coordinator of the event along with faculty members, Javier Francisco and Beauty Bragg.
“We wanted the different student groups to be able to come together and see what the others are doing,” said Francisco, Latino student advisor.
The forum also featured a student panel where different Latino and black groups from each college spoke about what they were doing for their campuses and how they got started. They provided tips for success and were open to questions from other students and organizations.
The forum was open to all students, not just minority groups. There were about 70 students and faculty present.
“For me the forum was very inspiring. I came back to campus ready to get involved with the Black Student Alliance and the Latino Student Association. We really want to get the Latino Student Alliance off of its feet, and it wasn’t until I went to the conference that I felt the fire and eagerness to get involved,” Mikayla Avila Vila, freshman creative writing major said.
After the forum, students, faculty and the community were invited to watch the play, “Platanos and Collard Greens”, which was held in the historic Douglass Theatre. The play depicted social stereotypes about interracial dating, prejudices and urban myths that exist between black people and Latinos. The theatre was filled to its capacity of 150.
“It was so much fun; I forget that it was an educational outing,” SaintDic said of the day’s events.
There are currently 180 Latino students enrolled at Georgia College and their presence is rising.
“Enrollment of Latino students is up 60 percent this year,” said Francisco.
The Latino Student Association went before SGA this week in order to become a Registered Student Organization. They hope by becoming an RSO they will gain unity and more influence on the Georgia College Campus.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 10 2008. Filed under News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
