WEB PAGE TOOLS ~ Print this article ~ E-mail your opinion on this article OTHER NEWS STORIES ~ Powerful finale to Multicultural Week hits SCC ~ SBA election results ~ Dean responds to 'Cabaret' poster dispute ~ Student Senate report ~ Parking Notes ~ This week in history: Campus politics heat up ~ Police Blotter ~ News Briefs A look at Multicultural Week: An SCC tradition Michael Carter Editor-in-Chief For some SCC students, the events of the past week and a half, centered mostly in the PUB, may have merely been a curiosity, or even a nuisance. However, others actively sought interest in the college's Multicultural Week, which lasted from April 23 to May 3, and participated in a host of programs, lectures, videos and panels covering a myriad issues including topics concerning immigration, culture, race, gender and class. Illustration by Jason Horsfall   "Multicultural Week is a great event," commented SCC Interim Director Scott Saunders. "I think that the campus has embraced it as a whole. It allows people to take pride in their cultures and celebrate them. There's also a feeling about discussing the problems we encounter and sharing the barriers with each other." According to Saunders, during the 1960s and '70s, Shoreline was primarily undiversified, containing a large Caucasian populous. However, as time stretched on, immigrants began streaming in. With the ensuing events in the world, a large demographic of varied racial and ethnic minorities grew. The conflict in Southeast Asia produced a population of immigrants and refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The break of the Soviet Union saw an influx of Russians and people from former bloc countries. A Bosnian and Albanian population followed suit after conflicts in those regions. Inevitably, many immigrants began attending SCC. With their presence, many international clubs, also composed of a growing number of study abroad students, began to spring up around campus. "The influx of international clubs led to a need for ways to create a support system for their cultures," Saunders remarked. "It's been an area where we've received a huge growth in our program. We had to look at the kind of services we provided and how we could help those folks, and Multicultural Week seemed like a nice way to get people together to talk about issues and get a lot of voices involved on a student level." "Part of our response (to begin the event) came from the state wanting to diversify campuses," remarked SCC Nutrition and Healthcare Professor Venus Deming, one of the event's original planners. "We started working on how to make SCC more multicultural and diverse all around. A diverse campus and curriculum is part of the excellence in teaching. For part of that we began to organize efforts to have a multicultural initiative on campus, and one of the activities we did was start a multicultural week." The original Multicultural Week event began in the mid-'90s and has been a campus tradition every year since. In its early days, the week was run by an ad hoc committee consisting of various SCC faculty, staff and students. However, over the years it became more organized and structured, now revolving around a programming council consisting of the Multicultural Diversity Center, Women's Center, Student Programs, International Programs and Registration. "The purpose of the week is to give the college campus opportunities to hear from, see, think about and reflect on the different experiences we all have," said Cathy Chun of the Women's Center. "It allows us to take a look at issues of equity, power and privilege, how we treat each other, and how we like to be treated." © 2003 Shoreline Community College™