Mixed Reactions to This Year’s International and Intercultural Week
Sophia Huang | April 7, 2022
Special to The Echo | Sarah Puterbaugh
Bria Scott performing in Gladfelter.
Food, lunchtime performances and controversies around certain programming were people’s key memories when asked about this year’s international and intercultural week at Warren Wilson College (WWC) that took place from March 14 to March 18.
Siti Kusujiarti, Ph.D, professor of sociology, remembers that formerly international week was dedicated to advertise study abroad courses. Only more recently with staff changes has international week become a mix between introducing faculty-led study away courses and celebrating international students, faculty and staff of the campus community.
“Seeing all these performances, I was able to see people’s talent, you know, I really cherish that.” Shuree Ochirbat, a first-year from Mongolia said. “It was really nice. And trying out different food. It definitely was different than just regular Glad food; I really liked it.”
Stella Banowetz, a sophomore from the U.S., co-organized international and intercultural week as the Global Engagement Office crew leader. They shared about the successful student engagement with the film screening of “Schooling the World” along with the candies from different countries.
At the same time, the week has also been met with mixed reactions by members of the community. Holly Hallmann, a sophomore from the U.S., expresses that she was not fully aware of international and intercultural week and that she wished there was more decoration in Gladfelter; a sentiment echoed by other students.
“They (whomever was in charge of the event) definitely should have done a lot more,” Hallmann said. “I am not an international student but I feel like international week kind of highlights the diversity we see on campus, and I feel like it really failed at doing that because it didn’t really incorporate anything that realistically stuck out. If you remember Mardi Gras and in Glad there was decoration and that makes me aware from day to day and class to class: ‘oh, there is something significant about this day.’ For international week they (whomever was in charge of the event) didn't do any of that.”
For the Honduran-themed lunch, Seimy Mendoza, a first-year from Honduras, was set to perform on stage, however, then decided not to.
“We international students have very little spaces on campus and I personally feel like our identities are not understood, neither (upheld) within the community,” Mendoza said. “However, it felt weird thinking of making it a performance because our identities is not something that should be prostituted for the entertainment of people.”
Kusujiarti holds a different point of view on the performances, including her lunchtime dance performance during international and intercultural week. She understands her performances as rituals and a means to bridge cultures.
“When I perform, I do not perform just for human beings,” Kusujiarti said. “I perform for my ancestors. I perform for the ancestors of the place. … For me, that performance is not the performance that Western culture is defining as performance. … This is again, what I meditoned about misleading conceptions, right. I have a totally different perception about that performance.”
Another event that stirred up different opinions was the peace vigil, which was added to an already planned fireside chat program and announced through an email. Two weeks prior to international and intercultural week, Russia invaded Ukraine, which is still an ongoing conflict.
According to Anna Welton, associate dean of community & global engagement, the addition was a response to student emails that the office received about the lack of institutional acknowledgement of the war in Ukraine.
“Given the current geopolitical crisis in Ukraine and our collective grief around the human suffering being endured, we will be holding a peace vigil for the first 15 minutes of the gathering, from 6 to 6:15 or thereabouts,” the email read. “We will have time for silence, time for comments, and candles and note cards available to share words of solidarity for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”
On the other hand, several other students perceived the vigil and the organization of said vigil as inappropriate, tactless and racist. For example, students pointed out the addition of the Ukrainian flag to the fireside chat poster that originally just featured the empanadas for the event, and the lack of institutional discussion on issues directly affecting non-white people, such as the conflict in Afghanistan and U.S. border policies.
“By not planning something we were upsetting some students and by planning something we were upsetting other students,” said Welton. “So it just highlighted the need for consistent campus messaging and acknowledgement around difficult world events.”
Welton is working with Tacci Smith, interim dean of student life, and Shannon Spencer, chaplain and director of Spiritual Life, to build a committee that will assess whether and how the college should respond to national and global events on Warren Wilson campus in the future.
International and intercultural week revealed challenges and opportunities of intercultural engagement on campus. To improve its work, the Global Engagement Office would like to hear and read individual feedback on this year's event as well as ideas for next year’s international and intercultural week.
“My hope is not just that international week happens in that week only, but, again, I am hoping that the week at least is creating a starting point,” Kusujiarti said. “But it needs to continue; the discussions, the dialogue, the conversations, the interactions need to continue. … If we have more continuous programming of that I think then it will be more embedded in the community, I think that is even more important. So how can we embed that, integrate that, within the context of our Warren Wilson culture?”
