This Friday students can discover the diverse cultures and unique identities of the NC State community at the second annual International Festival of NC State. The festival will consist of many learning experiences for students with food, music, student performances and more.
Nehemiah Chung, the program coordinator for the Office of International Services, said another purpose of the festival is to bring awareness to international students.
“For this International Festival, we are trying to build awareness on how to help both domestic and international students to have the opportunity to learn more about NC State’s globalization effort, as well as to interact with international students,” Chung said. “It’s also for international students to showcase their cultural region or country.”
Lexi Moyer, a third-year studying biochemistry and planning chair for the committee, said she is excited about the growth of the festival this year.
“It’s going to be pretty big this year,” Moyer said. “We will have representations from every continent except for Australia and Antarctica. We have just over 50 booths, so we will have a lot of different cultures represented.”
Moyer said that a lot of work has gone into the festival to help students learn about diversity.
“We are hoping to instill an environment of acceptance and diversity,” Moyer said. “The whole day is really exciting to me because of the work that has gone into it. There are so many people who are really excited; we have so many performances.”
According to Moyer, there will be several NC State departments tabling at the event like NCSU Libraries, the Women’s Center and Student Involvement.
“We entitled them ‘What’s Next?’ tables to represent different ways people can get involved on campus to further the diversity and educate themselves more,” Moyer said.
In terms of the cultural tables themselves, Moyer expects a fun and informative interaction.
“It’s a conversation,” Moyer said. “All of the tables will have an interactive component, but there will also be instruction on different aspects of the culture. It’s like a friend talking to a friend.”
According to Chung, students are excited about the upcoming event and have done a lot to help make it happen.
“Students really wanted to see this event happening,” Chung said. “We have the resources and the diversity on campus to have an event to come and celebrate their background, I think that was the main spark when we started last year. This year we have a student committee who has been spearheading the logistical side, location and PR. I think it’s good to have student input and to have them be the ones running it and our office to be the ones supporting it.”
The festival has been promoted this year to different organizations on campus with the goal of getting more people involved.
“We tried to promote it more this year, whether that’s to different cultural organizations or other departments who would like to help students define their global experiences on campus or going abroad,” Chung said. “My priority was to have as much student participation as possible, we extended the deadline for students to sign up.”
According the Chung, the International Festival was made possible by many different organizations on campus.
“The event is co-sponsored by NC State Office of Global Engagement, the Office of International Services, Student Involvement, Student Government and Office of Multicultural Affairs, ” Chung said. “They keep up with the logistics and make sure everything goes smoothly. We didn’t divide up the job, it was a combined effort.”
Chung also added that the event is open to the public and there will be food samples, student performances, music and the opportunity to get free T-shirts.
The International Festival will be on March 23 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Stafford Commons. More information about it can be found on the event’s webpage.
