The Crossroads Community Center will host the final First Wednesdays at Crossroads for the semester today from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Crossroads Lounge in Room 232 of the Ferguson Center.
First Wednesdays is an informal monthly networking social “meet and greet” for students, faculty and staff to share their thoughts on a variety of intercultural topics or to showcase the unique arts of their culture in a fun, social environment. First Wednesdays is an initiative of the division of community affair’s Crossroads Community Center.
“The goal of First Wednesdays is to bring different and diverse people together,” said Justin Zimmerman, a graduate assistant in the Crossroads Community Center.
“It’s a reception for you, the student. It’s not a reception for somebody else, for some big person we flew in from somewhere. Really, it’s just all about you, and we create it for you,” said Beverly Hawk, director of the Crossroads Community Center.
This is the second year of the First Wednesdays at Crossroads program, which was created by Brice Miller, assistant director of the Crossroads Community Center. Miller is also an international jazz musician, DJ and multi-instrumentalist from New Orleans.
“Essentially what we seek to do is to provide a creative, yet culturally-sensitive opportunity for the constituents of our community here on campus to be able to come together to exchange ideas, to exchange information about programming that’s taking place on campus, to ascertain information about resources available here on campus,” Miller said.
Over the past two years, these programs and resources have included the division of student affairs, Creative Campus, the Women’s Resource Center, Spectrum, the Blackburn Institute, the International Honors Program, the Capstone International Center, New Student and Parent Programs, Student Involvement and Leadership and University Programs.
“My life is education, community, and business. In the intersection of those things, of those three separate disciplines, the primary connection between those is networking,” Miller said.
First Wednesdays at Crossroads provides an atmosphere for students to meet and learn about each other while enjoying free food, video games, and music. This month, 90.7 The Capstone will be broadcasting from the Crossroads Lounge during the event. There will also be tables on the mezzanine outside of the Ferguson Center to provide more room for co-sponsors and to take advantage of the spring weather.
“First Wednesday’s whole idea is to actually get people together and socializing just through simple things like playing Wii together, Wii Tennis or something like that, and just basically showing them that we have more in common than we really realize even through the differences,” Zimmerman said.
Hawk said the event is an open invitation for the student body to interact. “First Wednesdays has no agenda other than to just bring people together,” Hawk said. “We want each person to think about the cultural gifts they bring to campus.”
The Crossroads Community Center’s mission is to “provide creative programming that brings the community together, that allows us to recognize the cultural differences that we have, the cultural beauties that we have, and how we can all enjoy and appreciate not only our own cultural heritage but the cultural heritage of others and in the rest of our community,” Miller said.
“It really does a good job of not having only one group of people represented. A lot of times, even with programs that are supposed to be diverse on campus, it usually appeals to one side or the other. It actually works toward getting as true diversity as possible not just who’s interested in this, but actually regardless of where your interest lies, easy common ground of social unity together,” Zimmerman said.
