By Samantha Garza | Staff Writer
Following the Mosaic Mixer, the Department of Multicultural Affairs hosted the annual Black Student Welcome event on Thursday in the Barfield Drawing Room of the Bill Daniel Student Center.
The event included an organization fair in which different Black student organizations set up tables with information for students interested in joining. The night also included music, dancing, gifts, giveaways and icebreakers like “extreme rock, paper, scissors.”
Kristen McDowell, a graduate apprentice in the Department of Multicultural Affairs, said five years ago, the department decided to expand the Mosaic Mixer from one day to a whole week in which three coalitions had a second opportunity to table.
“Mosaic Mixer just got too big, and so the administration came to us and said, ‘Hey, we love what you’re doing; do more of it,'” McDowell said. “So what we decided to do was break it up into three smaller nights for our three largest minority groups.”
This year, Black Student Welcome was the first event after the Mosaic Mixer. LatinX Night will follow on Aug. 29, and Mosaic Asian Night will close Mosaic Week on Aug. 30.
McDowell said each organization has an intern who is in charge of putting together the smaller events.
“We have three coalitions, and we have three interns in our office that oversee each coalition,” McDowell said. “We have an intern for each of those groups, and those interns are in charge of planning the smaller nights, so it’s whatever they want to do, which is really exciting because it’s what gives each night its own flavor.”
Spring sophomore Raven Ford said she really enjoyed attending the event.
“It was a cultural welcome,” Ford said. “It’s only less than 6% of Black people in Baylor, so to be surrounded by them and see the culture was really fun.”
Although the event was a good experience for Ford, she said Baylor could still do a better job at representing minorities.
“You see how the white sororities and the white fraternities are shown more on the Baylor page, but culture-wise, you only see minorities on the multicultural page,” Ford said. “That’s it — not on the main Baylor page. So I feel like they could do more exposing the culture organizations.”
Gates, N.C., senior Jamailah Riddick also said there is still room for improvement when it comes to minority events at Baylor.
“The amount of support for the multicultural events seems a lot less compared to other events,” Riddick said.
