VICTORIA BOLKCOM | STAFF WRITER

On Monday, Feb 19, the Martha Dickerson Eriksson College of Education, Special Education faculty and staff, and the College Diversity Task Force put on the 7th Annual Multicultural Food Fest.

The Multicultural Food Fest is directed by Moniqueka Gold of the College of Education.

It is the product of the Special Education faculty whose focus is in inclusion.

The theme of inclusion was created in conjunction with the multicultural students.

It has now been adopted by the faculty and the College of Education.

The Multicultural Food Fest is an event that encourages students to feel involved and interact with the faculty and other students on campus.

It is held around February annually.

This event is held for three main reasons.

“First, we wanted to honor various cultures of students at our university. We wanted there to be an opportunity for faculty and students to have comradery. Then, we want students and faculty to sit together and eat and talk outside of class,” said Gold.  “We wanted to create a social kind of environment within the community. And third, food because whenever you say eat people always come. You can say study session and they may or may not come, but when you say eat (students come). Strangers get to know strangers over food.”

“Some participate because they’re education majors so their teachers have announced it in class. Some of them participate because they’re in this building for other courses that are out of education like math and they see our sign and we post it well in advance so that they know and they come,” according to Gold.

This event also includes the graduate students.

They have food ready for the graduate students when they come in at 4:30. They have drinks, chips and sometimes cupcakes.

There is not any hot food, but they do have some snacks.

This serves as a kind gesture for the graduate students who are coming to the university after a long day of work.