During the pandemic, it has been hard for clubs and organizations at St. Lawrence University to put on events for the campus community especially, clubs of color. Due to the lack of members because of the lack of diversity on campus, it’s been hard for clubs of color to have events up. On top of that, most clubs of color have insufficient funding making it hard to run large scale events. But this semester has been great for clubs of color on campus with many diverse clubs on campus such as ASU hosting an Afro beats night, the I-house consistently hosting tea-times for the campus community, and IC co-hosting an All-star basketball game at Clarkson University.
But this past Saturday both BSU and La Sociedad hosted large events not only for the campus community, but for the Canton community to enjoy. They hosted El Carnaval and Battle of the islands for the first time since the pandemic. “La Sociedad is a Latinx organization that aims to foster the Latin American community at SLU as well to engage with the SLU community and bring awareness to Latin American culture,” said Kimberly Bravo’25 the event coordinator for La Sociedad. Moreover, La Sociedad goes in-depth about El Carnaval and its purpose.
“The purpose of El Carnaval is to celebrate different Latin American cultures after seeing of participating in Lent,” said Berenice Gervacio’25 the Secretary for La Sociedad. Moreover, they also go more in-depth into the difficulties of planning such a large event after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, “there was a lot of learning we all had to do within each of our respective positions to the point where we did most of the work as a team,” said Evelyn Villanueva ’24 the Treasurer of La Sociedad. “Our budget is not that big compared to other organizations on campus which was a huge concern for us,” said Villanueva.
The future of an important organization was discussed as well. “We are hoping to have a budget increase which would benefit the Carnaval becoming bigger and better as well as ensure that El Carnaval becomes an annual tradition at SLU,” said Andrea Guinanzaca ’23 the Vice-President of La Sociedad you can always find updates and events that La Sociedad is doing on their Instagram @lasociedad_lacasa_slu.
In addition, that evening BSU hosted Battle of the islands at Java. “The Black Student Union is a place of solitude for black students to create a sense of community on campus,” said Kalila Calame ’22 the President of BSU. Calame speaks more in-depth about the Battle of the Islands and its significance “Battle of the Islands is a Caribbean music-centered event that takes place in the Java Barn allowing everyone to represent their Caribbean heritage if not their home country in general,” said Calame. Calame recalls the difficulty of creating the Battle of Islands event coming back from a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. “We had to constantly push back the event due to the rising amount of COVID cases as well as communication issues preventing us from gathering things needed for the event,” said Calame.
Battle of the Islands is one of the few events of campus that also promotes connections between other schools within the North Country making it important to not isolate ourselves as a student body. Calame talks about what she envisions for BSU in the future, “I hope our budget keeps increasing like for the past two years now, so we can host bigger and better events on campus encourage connections with other clubs on campus and branch out,” said Calame. You can find updates and events BSU is doing on their Instagram @stlawu.bsu.