Third Annual IUPUI International Festival Postponed

INDIANAPOLIS – Update

The IUPUI Office of International Affairs announced that it will postpone the IUPUI International Festival until Spring 2007.

Susan Sutton, associate dean of international programs for IUPUI, and Hilary Kahn, director of international curriculum, released the following statement:

We feel that it is important to focus our energies and attention toward the very important and serious discussions currently underway regarding diversity on campus.  We are strongly committed to all forms of diversity, and we thus do not want to distract from this discussion nor do we find it appropriate to celebrate one type of diversity when other forms are in question.

We look forward to celebrating the international identity of IUPUI with you in the spring. IUPUI’s International Festival is an upbeat and positive celebration of the international diversity of IUPUI and one we all enjoy. We will reschedule the festival to a time that is more appropriate for us all. We apologize for any inconvenience."  

Festival coordinators have notified all participants and communicated the change. 

http://international.iupui.edu

ORIGINAL RELEASE - Take a whirl around the world without leaving campus at the third annual IUPUI International Festival.

The festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, November 16 in University College 115 and the Lower Level and in the University Library Corridor. The festival is free and open to the public.

This year’s festival will include an open mic for international music and dance, a photography exhibit by IUPUI Study Abroad students, a best-dressed contest, a conversation via videoconference with an IUPUI student who is studying abroad in Costa Rica, interactive displays and information tables, free ethnic food, music and dance, and international games, crafts and arts.

A photo exhibit of Study Abroad images will open at 10 a.m. on November 16 in UC 115. The exhibit features images from the 2006 Study Abroad photo contest. Refreshments will be served.

There will also be an International Best Dressed Contest in which participants are encouraged to don their ethnic and/or national clothing with an opportunity to win a $25 IUPUI Bookstore gift card. Categories include Best Dressed Male, Best Dressed Female, and Best Represented Student Organization. Contestants should check in with the judges' table in UC 115 at any time between 10 and 2.

Sponsored by the IUPUI Office of International Affairs and Campus & Community Life as part of the Spirit & Place Festival, along with the International Club, Go Abroad, the IUPUI Bookstore, Chartwells, and Canteen, the festival is designed to let participants hear, taste, see, and feel the faraway lands and cultures represented here at IUPUI. Local restaurants who have generously donated free food samples include Abyssinia Ethiopian Restaurant, Athens on 86th, The Bosphorus Turkish Cuisine, Don Pablos, Fionn MacCool’s Irish Pub, Greek Islands, Heidelberg Haus, The Rathskeller, Shalimar, Thai Spice, and Viet Bistro.

Participants in the festival include: African Student Association, Burma Student Association, Campus & Community Life/To Mexico with Love, Center on Southeast Asia, Democracy Plaza, Engineering and Technology, Falun Dafa, Go Abroad Club, Global Gifts, Indian Student Association, Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, International Club, International Studies Major, IU-Kenya Partnership/School of Medicine, Native American Student Association, Office of International Affairs, Russian Speaking Student Association, Social Work, Study Abroad, and World Languages and Cultures.