A World of Tradition originated from an ongoing program series entitled the New Student Experience (NSE) that offers a different seminar each week designed to ease the transition for first year students as they adjust to university life. At Cary Quadrangle, a team of two Resident Assistants (RAs) pair up and are responsible for organizing the programming for one NSE transition seminar per semester. NSE is structured to give the basic topic for each week with each topic coinciding with real college challenges and events as they occur on campus. Other than providing the basic topics, NSE is designed to give RA’s enormous flexibility to develop and execute creative educational programs in a timely manor.

The final NSE topic prior to mid-year break was ‘Holiday Diversity’ and the organizers were RA’s Huzaifah Razali (Hu) from Malaysia and Mathewos Yohannes (Mat) from Ethiopia. As international students, Hu and Mat, decided to focus on the lesser known religious and social holiday traditions practiced in cultures from around the world. After reviewing notes from the 2005 Holiday Diversity program Mat and Hu wanted to create a comfortable atmosphere in which several Cary residents would take stage and talk about their holiday traditions.

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A World of Tradition was set in a comfortable lounge with seating for about 40 residents. Snack foods and drinks were provided to lighten the mood and to encourage interaction prior to the programs’ start. Mat and Hu tapped into the vast resident network at Cary to procure several resident experts to talk about their personal holiday experiences in their home countries. The program was centered around the Indian Diwali Festival presented by Anirudha Bhende, the Ethiopian Christmas and Timket (Epiphany) traditions presented by Mat, the Latin Christmas presented by Daniel Salazar, and the Malaysian Hari Raya (Eid Ul-Fitr) celebration presented by Jabarullah Abdul Rahim. Each speaker shared their experiences and then facilitated discussion for about 15 minutes each with the total length of the program targeted at one hour. By taking advantage of the talent and resources at Cary Mat and Hu were able to put together a fantastic program for little cost. Additionally, the residents that came were also able to identify with the traditions on a more personal level because the presenters were their neighbors.

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A World of Tradition was successful in meeting all three of its goals set forth by Hu and Mat prior to the program. The first goal was to provide a comfortable place for new students (though all were welcome) to talk about diverse traditions from around the world. This was achieved in the laid back atmosphere in the lounge and with peer speakers talking about personal experience. The second goal was to create awareness about some of the lesser known holidays celebrated by some of the residents at Cary. Since several cultures are represented at the Quad it was easy to find several resident leaders to share from a variety of different backgrounds. The biggest challenge here was settling on the holidays to represent since there are a plethora of celebrations around the world. The final goal was to present several alternative ways of celebrating a traditional Christmas as interpreted by different cultures. This was accomplished easily since each of the speakers had experience living in several countries that celebrate Christmas and they could relate there experience to the traditional American celebration.

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Cary Quad houses residents from all around the world with numerous backgrounds; however, the majority of residents are white males with a Christian upbringing. One of the most positive aspects of the program was the interaction of each represented culture throughout the discussion. The talk continued even after the official program was over as several domestic students began sharing some of their experiences with Christmas and Hanukah with the international presenters. A World of Tradition also cleared up several cultural stereotypes by creating an aura of awareness about each represented celebration. Before the program, most of the residents in the audience were indifferent to at least one of the topics covered but after leaving each resident had a foundation respect for each culture. One of the deficiencies of this program is that there wasn’t enough time to cover all of the holidays celebrated around the world. However, the program did instill a sense of curiosity in the participants to discover and open to the holiday traditions around the world.

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A World of Tradition was an outstanding success and reached more residents than expected. Furthermore, the interaction among residents occurred very naturally with everyone displaying a vested interest in the topics. Each of the presenters brought a lot to the table and easily filled their allotted time with an abundance of content. This was the second year that the Quad has done the NSE Holiday Diversity program and the attendance doubled since the programs inception last year. The program needed took about one hour to prepare and for clean up and the program itself ran for the scheduled hour. Several residents stayed after the program concluded to talk with the presenters about other traditions. The program offered a great cross-cultural networking opportunity as the residents shared about their lives.

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This program is very easy to replicate and adapts well to all campuses and residence hall communities. Since there is a myriad of holidays celebrated around the world there are numerous opportunities to conduct a similar program. It has never been a problem finding dynamic speakers to share for this program and most of the students asked are eager to help improve awareness about their culture. There are many more holidays that are celebrated around this time of year that would have fit well into this program model showing that this program can be changed to adapt to just about any audience size or time window. Additionally, a creative way to change this program would be to take Christmas alone and compare the different regional traditions from around the United States and abroad to illustrate the breadth of variations. One aspect that last years program executed better was the food side of the program by offering a wide range of traditional ethnic dishes that were seasonal for each of the holidays. The possibilities for this program are endless and it can cater to just about any level of effort desired.

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