A heated tent on Deering Field was packed with people dancing and mingling Saturday as a mix of music, laughter and conversation filled the air during Northwestern's first Communiversity Day, an event aimed at uniting Evanston residents and NU students.
Despite bad weather, between 700 and 800 people visited the tent throughout the day, said Lucile Krasnow, an NU special assistant for community relations. More than 60 student groups and several academic departments participated in the day's activities.
Activities inside the tent included displays of Arabic artwork, carnival foods and West African dancing. The table occupied by the Muslim-cultural Students Association offered attendees the opportunity to have their names written in Arabic by NU students on construction paper with glitter.
Krasnow began planning Communiversity Day about a year ago with former ASG president Patrick Keenan-Devlin, Music '06, who is a current member of Leadership Evanston. The two began discussions last April about the possibility of NU hosting an outreach day for the community, she said.
"I've been passionate about what NU has to offer for a very long time and really wanted to do something about it," Krasnow said. "We sent out letters to faculty and students pitching a day of events for free and asked departments if they were interested. We were overwhelmed with the response we received."
In efforts to attract Evanston residents, the Communiversity Day team rented advertising time before films at Evanston's Century Theatre and sent out informational postcards to all residents.
Northwestern Community Development Corps worked to create Arts Fest, a display of student and professional artwork including ceramics, murals, photography and theatrical performances by NU student groups.
"I was approached by NCDC because they saw my work on the City of Evanston web page," said Eric Sorensen, an Evanston artist featured at Arts Fest. "I'm really the luckiest dude in the world to be able to do stuff like this."
2008 Woodie Awards
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