The Unity Showcase & Carnival is an annual event organized by the Ethnic Student Council (ESC) in order to promote the rich diversity and culture of the Stevens community. This year, as normalcy has returned on campus, the ESC announced that the Unity Showcase & Carnival will be reintroduced with the theme “Our Resilience.” The goal of these events is “to showcase the obstacles and hardships of our cultures and to emphasize our strength throughout the pandemic.” For the first time in three years, the Stevens community would be able to celebrate its cultural heritage and diversity and “see what it truly means to be resilient.” Prizes were also presented at the events.
Like other events and organizations, the pandemic had an impact on the Unity Showcase & Carnival. In 2019, before the pandemic, the events were last staged in Canavan Arena. Following that, the ESC’s e-board members opted to hold the events on Palmer Lawn beneath a large tent, with masks required to ensure the safety of the community. Furthermore, because of the pandemic, the ESC was unable to host Unity 2020 and 2021. The Stevens community was also unable to partake in the events, so a majority of undergraduate students could not assist in preparing for Unity 2022 since they had not experienced the Unity events before. “The only Stevens students that have experienced a Unity are the students that are currently 4/4s, 4/5s, 5/5s, or grad students,” Jordan Wang, President of the Ethnic Student Council, informed The Stute via an email interview. However, according to Wang, despite the many changes that the pandemic had on the events, everything else remained the same, including a stage, tech crew, giant screen, and lighting.
Preparations for Unity 2022 began in the middle of the fall semester of 2021. The ESC ensured that “all the cultural organizations [got] their deliverables in on time” to prepare for the Unity Showcase & Carnival. They collaborated with “Any Excuse For A Party and put together an event featuring carnival booths hosted by the orgs along with outsourced carnival attractions,” according to Wang. On the other hand, in the course of planning for the Unity Showcase, they partnered with Castle Point Kings (CPK) and Admitted Student Weekend to arrange a stage for their activities.
“There are a lot of back and forth meetings and emails between ESC, CPK, Admitted Students, and Student Life to make sure everyone [was] on the same page,” Wang said. “Responsibilities are split up amongst the eboard, but in the end, we all come together to put everything together and ensure that it goes well.”
However, because just one of the e-board members had prior experience with Unity events and the others had not had the opportunity to prepare for them, the planning process grew more complicated. Wang furthermore elaborated, “A lot of it came down to asking the previous ESC eboard, digging through our archive files, and discussion amongst our eboard about how these events should be run.”
In previous years, the Unity Carnival drew around 330 participants, and a similar number of people attended the Unity Showcase. The Unity Carnival is only open to undergraduate students, but the Unity Showcase is extended to everyone, including alumni, family, and community members. “While we do not have concrete numbers, we are expecting around 350-400 attendees this year, including family and alumni,” Wang said.
With the reintroduction of Unity festivities, the ESC hopes to restore Unity’s pre-pandemic splendor and highlight the ethnic variety on campus. “A majority of the student body has never experienced Unity and have only heard stories,” Wang asserted, “and we hope to finally give them a taste of what Unity truly is.”
The first of the two events, Unity Carnival, was held on Schaefer Lawn on Wednesday, April 6 from 1–4 p.m. Cultural cuisine and carnival activities were provided by cultural organizations, as were “outsourced carnival attractions” such as High Striker and Obstacle Course. On Friday, April 8, the Unity Showcase will take place on Palmer Lawn from 6–8 p.m. During this event, a variety of cultural organizations on campus performed to represent their culture. Performances were featured in these organizations: Cultural Greek Council, Stevens A Cappella, Stevens TECHnique, Black Student Union, Chinese Student Association, Filipino Association of Stevens Tech, Indian Undergraduate Association, Korean Student Association, and Latin American Association.
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