List of Events and Programs
The following events are recognized and supported by the Wake Forest Office of Multicultural Affairs.
"Can-I-Poet" Spoken Word Series
Can-I-Poet Spoken Word Lounge and Open Mic is an event series where students come and express themselves artistically. Students share poetry, spoken word, songs and raps, but the series is not limited to just these forms of expression. Can-I-Poet welcomes all forms of expression, including instrumental performances, monologues, even visual art! Can-I-Poet also invites a few professional artists each year to share with the campus community, including such well known performers as Oveous Maximus, Carlos Andrés Gómez, and Black Ice. Can-I-Poet also produces a publication each year, and accepts submissions of student visual art and written word.
Chinese Moon Festival & Chinese New Year
The Chinese Moon Festival and Chinese New Year are two of the largest Chinese holidays. These two events, held in the fall and spring semesters, respectively, are thrown by our two Asian student groups, the Asian Student Interest Association (ASIA) and the Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA). These events features Asian food, performances by various groups, including Aspara (Wake Forest’s Indian dance troupe), fashion shows, games, and other fun and cultural happenings.
Diwali
Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is the "Festival of Lights" celebrated in India. The lights or lamps signify the victory of good over evil. There are many legends associated with Diwali. In northern India, Diwali marks the last harvest of the year and is celebrated by invoking the deity of wealth, goddess Lakshmi. The goddess is thanked and everyone prays for a good year ahead. In other parts of India, Diwali is celebrated as the homecoming of King Rama of Ayodhya after a 14-year exile in the forest. The people of Ayodhya welcomed King Rama by lighting rows of lamps called deepas, thus its name Deepavali.
Friday Morning Breakfast
Friday Morning Breakfast is a weekly event set up to foster dialogue and give student time for a break. It helps encourage taking time to reconnect people, even when they have busy schedules.
Homecoming Festivities
The Office of Multicultural Affairs partners with the Black Student Alliance annually to host the Homecoming Alumni Tailgate. Current and former students and staff come together to fellowship and celebrate memories before the Homecoming game. This tailgate takes place in the student lot at BB&T Field.
Hosting Prospective Multicultural Student Visits
Part of the mission in the Office of Multicultural Affairs involves reaching out to potential and incoming students, as well as those already part of the campus community. Because of this, OMA collaborates very closely with the Office of Admissions for Diversity Outreach. The Office of Admissions coordinates overnight visits for multicultural seniors in high school through its Visions Program. Knowing that students may desire a chance to really get to know Wake Forest before they are seniors in high school, OMA will coordinate overnight visits for multicultural students whenever it is convenient for the student and their family. If a prospective student contacts our office and inquires about staying overnight, we will communicate with the many students that work with our office to find an on-campus host for the student, so they can spend the night in a residence hall and shadow a current student around campus, possibly even attending a class with them. It is a wonderful opportunity for multicultural students to view campus before that last crunch during senior year!
If you would like to coordinate an overnight visit, please contact the Office of Multicultural Affairs at , or call the office at (336) 758-5864.
Journeys to Success Speaker Series (J2S)
Through this series the Office of Multicultural Affairs brings distinguished speakers to campus to interact with the Wake Forest community. These speakers are renowned in their fields, and come from all levels, including international, national, and local. OMA often seeks co-sponsors for this phenomenal series, to assist in making sure that the entire campus and surrounding community benefits from their wisdom.
Past speakers have included:
Susan Taylor, Terry McMillan, and Vernon Jordan, among others.
Native American Voices – Part of the J2S series, this particular event was held during Native American Heritage Month. Five nationally-renowned Native American leaders came to campus for an open forum, including the first female Navajo surgeon in the United States, current and past presidents of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a past chairman of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, and the current president of the National Congress of American Indians.
Leadership Development Initiatives
The Office of Multicultural Affairs hosts an Executive Board Fall Retreat for student organizations at the beginning of each Fall Semester. This retreat helps further develop students as leaders within their organizations and on campus, by walking them through university processes like OMA's co-sponsorship request forms and SAF,and highlighting successful models of organizational function.
M4 Initiative: Making Manhood Mean More
An original program created by assistant director Jonathan Cox, M4 is a group of African-American men who meet weekly for a 9-week short course, to talk about issues of masculinity and manhood, sexuality, higher education, families and relationships, spirituality, and other topics, all related to being a Black man. Through a mixture of discussions, article and book reading, and videos and other pop culture media, this group explores the implications of socialization and media influence on Black men, and engages with the larger idea of "what does it mean to be a Black man?" Click here for a more detailed description of the Initiative.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration
Native American Heritage Month
What began at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the First Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States has resulted in the month of November being designated for that purpose.