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UMEC offers students a space to build community and do homework.

UMEC offers students a space to build community and do homework.

The Unity Multicultural Education Center (UMEC) started a year of celebration in honor of the 25th anniversary of the center by holding the UMEC 25th Anniversary Block Party on Foley Lawn and Rosauer Courtyard on Friday afternoon.

The celebration featured an introduction by emcees Liz Perez and Haylee Pollard. This was then followed by a land acknowledgement by professor Juliane Mora.

Jessie Mancilla, the newly hired director of UMEC, then discussed the history of UMEC and DICE and its important relevance to Gonzaga University.

Festivities then began, which featured a complimentary meal and dessert from the numerous food truck vendors such as Mixed Plate, Crepe Café Sisters, Om-Unique’s Pastrami, Ben and Jerry’s and Kona Ice.

Two Spokane-based vendors, A Woman’s Worth and Hug in a Mug, were both selling items at the event as well.

Woman’s Worth is an organization known for empowering women to rebuild self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth through their passion of expressed arts.

Hug in a Mug is an organization that sells personalized items for special occasions such as shirts, hats and stickers.

The Center for Community Engagement (CCE) was also tabling to present themselves as a resource to students.

During the event, several dance performances occurred which promoted the talents of the numerous dance majors. It was meant to show how even though GU has dance teams and clubs, there are many dance majors who are just as talented with performing.

Other fun activities were lawn games such as corn hole, Spikeball and tricycles that multiple pairs of students would race with around the lawn. There was also a dunk tank that was a crowd favorite as numerous students and faculty would line up to dunk members of the DICE department and other GU faculty.

Jacquelyn Lee, a senior and current BSU president, performed a spoken word piece which reflected on the positive impact and welcoming environment DICE has offered to her since her first year at GU.

The event was organized by Tere Graham, the program manager for social justice programming, and by student organizer, Kylie Mukai.

Mukai stated the reasoning behind why having this 

his event was so important.

“I think as a student, being able to meet other people that I wouldn’t have met and this event providing space to play games and eat food is a great way to establish community,” Mukai said. 

Graham discussed the value of the event in terms of bringing joy to students.

“This event is important to me because oftentimes the work we do, especially in our space where we’re supporting and advocating for traditionally marginalized communities, we forget to pause and enjoy life and have joy with it,” Graham said. “It’s just a space for students to enjoy one another, meet new friends, and make new connections while providing joy on campus.”

The event was also important in terms of showing the unity among members in UMEC and those who use DICE’s resources, as most participants are a part of  marginalized communities.

“I think a lot of students, especially those in UMEC are people of color or marginalized communities because they need space to make friends that look like them and that is important for the community by raising awareness to show who UMEC is, who we are, where we are and what our mission is,” Mukai said.

Furthermore, Graham also expanded on her hope that GU's culture will change in terms of supporting students.

“For Gonzaga, it is wonderful for our campus to embrace what we do and to not have a student just be a student that shows up in class or participate in incredible programs, but rather showing that life is a balance and for us to allow students to be students and enjoy themselves is pretty cool,” Graham said. “Hopefully that balance can cause our university to shoulder some of the fight and the advocacy that is not a student’s responsibility to do.”

Graham also said it is important that faculty, administration and staff members are proactive in supporting the student body.

“If we can listen to what they’re [students] asking and preemptively be proactive in showing them that we heard the students the first time and showing action and ask them if this is what they want, then if not how can we recover and try again," Graham said. "I hope we can be collective and not just have individual work on the side so we can start seeing ourselves work together.”

The success of UMEC’s block party will hope to carry on for future events such as their Talk About it Thursdays, which start on Sept. 15 at noon in the Jundt Lounge 201.

Dominic Pe Benito is a diversity editor.

Dominic Pe Benito is a junior from Gilroy, CA. He was a staff writer last spring before becoming a diversity editor for this fall. He is also the editor-in-chief of Our Voices and president of FASU.

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