Multicultural sorority promotes cultures

While Theta Nu Xi Publicity Chair Kimberly Shrack said she thinks the IU campus is diverse, she also said the campus has not yet learned to appreciate all of the cultures.

“What we are not is multicultural,” Shrack said. “We have a hard time embracing a bunch of different cultures at once.”

Therefore, Theta Nu Xi is celebrating all things multicultural at IU with “THETAlicious,” a week of events about different cultures and ethnicities and the issues they face.

The sorority is hosting a panel discussion about preparing for graduate and professional school at 7 p.m. today in the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.

“Several of our members are applying to grad school,” Shrack said. “We figured a lot of people were going through this.”

The sorority, along with OUT GLBT Student Union, will present a mock same-sex wedding at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday in the Grand Hall of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.

Shrack said this event is especially important to her sorority because the organization specifically recognizes tolerance of all sexual orientations.

The wedding is one of the events Shrack said she is most looking forward to, and she hopes some people come to the event without knowing it’s a same-sex ceremony.

“Sometimes we end up preaching to the choir,” Shrack said. “It’s good to have people who might not necessarily know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Following the mock wedding will be a discussion of topics such as civil unions.

Students who buy a T-shirt at Wednesday’s “Paint Your Face, Forget Your Race” event in conjunction with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Alpha Phi sorority will get a free burrito at Chipotle if they bring in their shirts.

“Paint Your Face, Forget Your Race” involves students putting a stripe of paint on their faces to “show that race is only skin-deep,” Shrack said.

Groups will be stationed at the Indiana Memorial Union and in front of Ballantine Hall to let students take part in the face painting.

The centerpiece of the week is “Take ONE: A Multicultural Talent Competition,” scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday in the Willkie Auditorium.

In addition to talent performances ranging from breakdancing to spoken word acts, the newest sisters of Theta Nu Xi will come out in an “emergence,” which is a formal presentation of the new members, Shrack said. The new members will share stories about why they decided to join the sorority.

“It’s cool to get together a diverse group to show IU how diverse this campus really is,” Theta President Ceazon Edwards said.

Edwards said a week of events like this shows the campus that Theta Nu Xi “really wants to make a change” in the way diversity is treated.

“Coming to our events, you really see what we have to offer,” Edwards said. “We show IU who we are.”