By Megan Baker | Cardinal Courier
St. John Fisher College
Rochester, New York

NEW YORK – Day of Celebration (DOC) is an annual Fisher event in which students get the opportunity to immerse themselves in a foreign culture.

This year, it is co-chaired by Iaen Nylund and Franz Wright, who were the recipients of the 2008 Excellus Diversity Scholarship, which recognizes student leaders who show initiatives that pertain to diversity.

DOC was founded by Arlette Miller Smith, the former dean of Multicultural Affairs and Diversity, and has focused on cultures ranging from Jamaican to Irish. This year it will be held on Saturday, Dec. 6 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Cleary Auditorium. The focal culture this year is Ethiopian.

“We will be celebrating Ethiopian culture by having various performers from the Ethiopian community like the Ethiopian Children’s Choir from the Rochester Ethiopian Orthodox Church,” Wright said. “With our focus on the Ethiopian culture, we will also celebrate other diverse cultures like the African American/Caribbean culture, Asian culture and Hispanic culture.”

Wright and Nylund have booked performers from both the Fisher community and the Rochester area.

“We have been making connections with many of the performers that we have had in the past as well as finding new ones,” Nylund said. “At first it was very challenging finding performers that would pertain to our cultural theme, but now things are starting to come through.”

Wright went on to say that he feels the performances planned for this year “will be the most exciting, extravagant, and diverse ever.”

Campus clubs Arts in Motion and Measure 13 will be among the performers.

Nylund urges students to come, as there will be a lot of free food, crafts and entertainment. Most importantly, it is a chance to experience a new culture.

“This year we have a culture that seems even more foreign for many people. I think it is special because people seem truly unaware of the Ethiopian culture and because of that it is all the more interesting,” Nylund said. “My goal is that people leave day of celebration with a little more knowledge about the world and it will help them stay open-minded.”

If anyone is interested in volunteering to help with DOC, meetings are held on Tuesdays during free period in Council of Presidents (COP) conference room three.

(For more information, contact Iaen Nylund at [email protected] or Franz Wright at [email protected])