O UAC H I TA
B A P T I S T
U N I V E R S I T Y
the
SIGNAL
02.23.18
Vol. 126, Issue 16
SINCE 1890 FEATURES | 3
THE REFUGE BAND Meet the students leading worship on Thursday nights
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International Club and Grant Center host International Food Festival By VICTORIA ANDERSON
Staff writer
Alex Blankenship z Photo lab TOP: Dr. Mark McGraw helps serve Drs. Doug and Amy Sonheim with cuisine from the Americas section of the International Food Festival. BOTTOM: Students gather around tables and at lines to sample foods from various cultures.
Alex Blankenship z Photo lab
On February 20, Ouachita’s International Club and the Daniel and Betty Jo Grant Center for Internatinal Educatin hosted the annual International Food Festival to celebrate international students, missionary kids and third-culture kids. “The International Food Festival has been a major event on campus since 2007,” said Amy Gattis, assistant director of international education in the Grant Center and co-leader of the festival team. “It was originally a smaller event which was led by international students and sponsored by Campus Ministries. The Food Fest has been happening, in different formats, since the early 80’s.” For this year’s festival, there were about 50 cooks preparing food from 30 different countries, 20 table decorators and 77 people volunteered to help everything run smoothly. The theme was “The Spice of Life,” and the goal was to highlight the fact that Arkansas is the #1 global exporter of rice in the United States.
“As we know, rice without spice tastes awfully bland, but as each different ethnic group adds their own unique spices to our rice, it becomes more flavorful,” said Sharon Cosh, coordinator of the English As a Second Language Program in the Grant Center and décor coordinator for the festival, “This becomes a metaphor for what happens on our campus when we bring students from around the world to live among us: they bring their own culture—their own unique perspectives, their ‘spice’—and add it to our culture—our ways, our ‘rice’—thereby creating a more enriched experience for us all.” Cosh had directed the event for the past seven years, but this year she handed over the directorship to Gattis due to family needs and her approaching retirement. However, as in previous years, the two still worked closely together to make the festival a success. Other committee members included Tanya Jackson, Lydia Stebbins, Matthew Alderman, Teresa Workman, Joao Rodrigues, Alex Holder, Asaph Camillo, Abby Morse, Melissa Lee, Stephanie
Weatherford, Estelle Zhang, Brend Park, Dylan Bester, Kris Torres and Zeb Barrett. Alex Holder, a senior accounting major from Sour Lake, Texas and co-catering coordinator alongside Asaph Camillo, has been helping at the festival since her freshman year and enjoyed experiencing different foods. “Every country has a unique flavor,” said Holder. “In one place the food could be super spicy, but in others the food could have more of a sweet flavor. It’s just interesting to bring all these foods together and pretty much just taste the world. You find new foods you never knew were absolutely delicious.” Tickets for the event were $5 each, with proceeds benftting the Grant Center as well as Ouachita’s Internatinal Club. Everyone in the community was encouraged to attend the International Food Festival because of the opportuniity to try and experence new things. “People should attend because it’s a learning experience,” said Holder, “You learn a lot about different countries and cultures from your fellow classmates.” n
Ouachita announces project Tiger Steel attends competition in Trinidad to renovate apartments By ANNI WILLIAMS Staff writer
By KATIE KEMP Editor-in-chief
Ouachita president Dr. Ben Sells announced during Tuesday, February 13’s chapel service that Ouachita had plans to renovate Ouachita Apartments, a complex of 16 apartment units on the corner of 8th Street and McNutt Street, thanks to recent generous donor gifts. The project is slated to be completed by the end of August, in time for students to move in for the fall semester. The renovation is part of an ongoing effort initiated by Sells to grow Ouachita’s student body to maximum capacity. “The idea was birthed out of the vision that Ouahita needs to grow to capacity,” Sells said. “We’ve consistently been at 1,500 students, but really we’re made for 1,750 students. So, how do we grow to that capacity with 95 percent of students living in university housing?” During Sells’ first year as Ouachita’s president––his “freshman year,” as he calls it––he toured all the apartments Ouachita owns and leases, and this is when he discovered Ouachita Apartments. The buildings were constructed in the 1950s, but had been vacated for several years after falling into disrepair. Historically, students had enjoyed living in these apartments because of their design and proximity to campus. Given these factors, a few
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individuals “caught a vision” to revitalize the apartments. They saw the potential of the buildings and decided to give to the university in order to begin a restoration project. Funding for the project was made possible by Dr. Wesley and Debbie Kluck, as well as another anonymous family who has never been to Ouachita’s campus, but believes in its values and shares Sells’ vision for growth. “As we’ve talked more about the future, people, more broadly speaking, are coming alongside and saying, ‘how can I help?’” Sells said. Plans for the renovation are practically an overhaul of the entire current design. Apartments will receive a new kitchen floor plan, new cabinets, new appliances, nicer counters, oak flooring and new bathroom flooring, among other modifications and updates. At this time, married couples and female students are eligible to apply to live in Ouachita Apartments for the fall 2018 semester. The two buildings include eight onebedroom apartments and eight two-bedroom apartments. Construction on the buildings is set to begin soon with a completion date slated for August. For more information about Ouachita Apartments and to see if you are eligible to live in them,, contact Bill Phelps at phelpsb@ obu.edu or Stacey Perry at perrys@obu.edu. n
Tiger Steel, a steel drum band comprised of Ouachita students, attended Panorama, a steel drum competition in Trinidad, from January 2330. Megan Bayer, a sophomore mathematics major and member of Tiger Steel, explained that steel pan in Trinidad is “a huge deal. The group that ended up winning Panorama overall this year, Renegades, had a really fancy pan yard. When we went to theirs, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago actually showed up and gave a speech.” The group had a wonderful and wide range of experiences, even though they didn’t do exactly what they were going to do. Grace Steiner, a junior psychology major who went on the trip, said, “We were going to play with a local band there. They got 15th, and they only take the first 14 bands, so we weren’t going to play with them because they weren’t going to be in the competition.” “Meeting and talking with people was a really cool experience,” said Steiner. “It was really awesome to see the different cultures and actually how similar they were to us and our culture. It was definitely their own culture and a very different thing but it was cool to see how they’re passionate about different things like steel.” “Different things are more important to them than they are to us,” Steiner said. “Their buildings all looked very run
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y Style pointers from Tiffany Lee y Humans of Ouachita y Delph Life
Ryan Lewis z Courtesy TIGER STEEL poses in the airport after arriving in Trinidad. The group spent seven days there to attend a world-renowned steel drum competition.
down, not super great. Even the factory we went to where steel pans are made, it was just a shack. It looked like there could be no use for it, but there are thousands of pans that go through there, are made and sold across the nation. It’s kind of a big deal. Everything there is used, even if it looks like a rundown shack it’s going to be used. That was a different cultural aspect.” Steiner says the best experience for her was going to semifinals at the Panorama steel drum competition. The bands move their steel drum “cages” down the street until they reach the stadium. At one point, the group got to be “basically in the middle of a band” as they rehearsed. “You could literally feel the music and the beat and there was no way you could stand there without moving your feet and getting excited about it... I got to physically experience the music and see
how it changes lives.” “I know you can’t translate the music into print, but I wish you could… the whole week after I got back, I was bouncing all over the place all of the time,” Bayer said of the energy of the music she experienced.. The group was also able to experience the religious side of a culture different from their own. “We got to visit a Hindu temple,” Bayer said. “It was a really intense moving experience. They were having a cremation across the water. It was a beautiful sight, but you could feel that there was darkness there... To see that this person, that their body’s burning here, but their soul’s burning in hell. I was on the verge of openly weeping after this. It was really eyeopening to see. You know this stuff is going on in the world, but it’s not here… it was a really good experience. Very humbling.” n
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