IMU to offer a taste of the world

Imagine bringing together all the ethnic and international cultures of IU and spending an entire evening sampling their authentic cuisines.\nThe Union Board Diversity Performance Committee, in collaboration with the Office of International Services, decided last semester to offer such an event, IU World’s Fare.\nThis festival will celebrate the diversity on campus and introduce students to different menus from around the world, said Kelli Zimmerman, Union Board Diversity Performance director.\nBeginning at 5 p.m. tonight, Indiana Memorial Union’s Alumni Hall will become infused with nearly every culture on IU’s campus. \nIU World’s Fare is free to IU students with their student IDs, Zimmerman said.\n“The goal of World’s Fare is to raise awareness about the different international student groups, and to include them in the mainstream campus events,” she said. “We also want everyone to have a good time learning about new cultures.”\nThe international food festival will open with a performance by the African Ensemble, and nearly two-dozen student cultural groups will be represented.\nExotic cuisines from Puerto Rico, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Hawaii will be featured, just to name a few.\nOther groups displaying their respective culture, but not necessarily serving food, include the Asian American Association, the Indian\nStudent Association, IU Korean Student Association, the Japanese Student Association, the Malaysian Student Association, the Pakistan Student Association, the Saudi Students Club and the Turkish Student Association.\nDuring the food sampling, there will be more performances by several international student organizations such as Sigma Lambda Upsilon (Senoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority, Inc.), the Singapore Student Association, the Thai Student Association and the Kazakh Student Association.\nA panel consisting of IMU interim executive director Bruce Jacobs, Meeting Rooms Assistant Director Hollie Lutz, several faculty members and Office of International Services staff members, will judge performances, Zimmerman said. \n“This is a brand new event,” Zimmerman said. “(My committee) was trying to live up to our name, Diversity Performance, and we found out that the Office of International Services and the International Center were trying to do the same thing.”\nCollaborating with the other offices, Zimmerman said that the pilot project has been under construction since the end of the spring 2007 semester.\n“Hopefully, it will be huge,” Zimmerman said. “According to the Facebook group, we have over 500 people coming.”