Yulissa Chavez
Staff Writer
The Center for Multicultural Services in the Ludwick Center held an open house last week, attended by roughly 20 students, who expressed their interest in learning more about the center and its programming.
Students were drawn to the canopy and the buzz of chatting at the information booth outside the building, which provided information about the cultural clubs on campus, such as Latino Student Forum and Black Student Union and summer service. It also offered a signup sheet for the annual diversity retreat, which will be a month-long online event starting March 4.
And the booth offered snacks and a chance to enter a raffle for ULV gear.
“I had a class in the Ludwick Center and I saw it happening from the window, so I wanted to come by and see what was going on,” said Alec Jahanvash, senior rhetoric and communication studies major.
Prior to the Ludwick Center opening in the fall of 2019, the Center for Multicultural Services was inside the Sports Science and Athletic Pavilion.
With COVID and the abrupt campus shutdown from Spring 2020 through Summer 2021, some students had not had the chance until last week to visit the new center.
“The reality is that a lot of folks have not been introduced to what the center is and where the center is,” said Daniel Loera, director of multicultural affairs. “So we wanted to give the opportunity for the campus community to come out and learn more about the Center of Multicultural Services.”
“It is a little farther than the rest of campus, but I wanted to come out and check out what is going on with Latino Student Forum and the other cultural clubs on campus,” said Elias Gennaoui, junior biology major.
“In particular we want to encourage folks to attend the diversity and retreat series, which are great learning opportunities and a great way to meet new people as well,” Loera said.
The Center of Multicultural Service’s diversity retreat is a series of virtual workshops that discusses the identities of oneself and others through topics of ableism, gender identity, advocacy and more. These 90-minute workshops will be held on Wednesdays and Fridays from March 4 to April 8 via Zoom.
“All the different events looked pretty interesting, a lot of diversity events, a lot of inclusion,” said freshman kinesiology major Jonathan Saldivar. “It seems like a nice, safe place to involve yourself in.”
For more information, visit laverne.edu/multicultural or @ulv_cms on Instagram.
Yulissa Chavez can be reached at yulissa.chavez@laverne.edu.
Yulissa Chavez, a junior communications major and sociology minor, is a staff writer for the Campus Times.
