The annual Multicultural Fest, hosted by the University Diversity Council, returned to campus March 20 with music, games and lots of good food.
Guests could learn about and sample food from the Philippines, Italy and other nations at student- and staff-hosted tables. The Medical Student Pride Alliance also staffed a table to share information about the LGBTQ+ community.
DJ Kris Koch kept things lively with a steady stream of music from different cultures.
Dance was the preferred performance method for the event. Students Momi Talukdar (P2) and Shashank Raghavachari (M1) entertained guests with their dances. Lyndall Amann, administrative coordinator and ballroom dance instructor, was joined by guests to demonstrate a variety of dance steps. Entertainment was capped off with a special performance by young students from MacConmara Academy of Irish Dance in Akron.
All attendees could try their luck – and test their multicultural trivia knowledge – through three games this year.
A reoccurring game at each Multicultural Festival event is the Flag Game where participants are given 15 different flags and need to guess which country the flag belongs to. Participants can ask for up to two hints for each flag to help them out. We had three winning answer sheets this year, with all 15 answers correct:
- Josephine Lepp, research associate, Altaf Darvish, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Li Lim
- James Berry (M1)
- Rayhan Asif (M1)
A “wheel of names” random-winner generator was used to pick the prize winner. Congratulations to Rayhan Asif! Fun fact: Rayhan also answered all country flags correctly at last year's event (with a different version of the game)!
A new game of this year was Guess My Birth Country where participants were tasked with writing down the birthplace of well-known musicians, actors, athletes and politicians. There were no hints in this game and it was hard! The winning sheet only guessed 12 out of 24 answers correctly. Congratulations to Francisco Reyes & Sam Rao!
How many can you guess?
- Lupita Nyong’
- Oscar de la Renta
- Jungkook
- Naomi Osaka
- Heavy D
[answers below]
The last game of the event was a Country Fun Fact game where participants had to guess the country by the facts. This game proved to be a bit easier than the Birth Country game with two participants scoring a perfect 15:
- Andrea Arias-Alvarado
- Rayhan Asif
The same random-winner generator was used to pick the prize winner. Congratulations to Andrea Arias-Alvarado!
How many fun facts do you know?
- This country is called the Emerald Isle. Halloween was invented here
- This country has more coastline than any other country. The maple leaf has been a symbol since the 1800s
- Known as the birthplace of Western Civilization. Plato, Pythagoras, & Socrates are notable philosophers from here.
[answers below]
Winners will be contacted via email when their prize is ready for pick up.
Thank you for all participants and a special thank you to Stephanie Orwick for helping with the games.
Guess My Birth Country key
- Lupita Nyong’ – Mexico 2. Oscar de la Renta – Dominican Republic 3. Jungkook – South Korea 4. John Houseman – Romania 5. Heavy D - Jamaica
Country Fun Fact key
- Ireland 2. Canada 3. Greece
