Last Tuesday, the Lunar New Year celebration took off at the UTRGV Edinburg campus ballroom. Over 1.5 billion people across the world celebrate this Lunar New Year. Director of International Student Admissions and Student Services, Samantha Lopez, tells us more.
[su_quote]“We always want to make our students feel like home. So, for example for our Asian students and faculty. For them they feel very grateful that we do this event, because this is their culture and their culture is here and its being acknowledged, and that’s very important for them.”
-Samantha Lopez, Director of International Student Admissions and Student Services[/su_quote]
Students and organizations were at the event hosting activities and workshops relating to the Lunar New Year. English junior, Jose Contreras tells why this event is so important to students such as himself.
[su_quote]“Not all of us know that much about Asian culture, so this event is a pretty good opportunity to learn Korean, Chinese, the Asian culture in general. Our table is teaching other people how to write Happy New Year in Korean and pronounce it as well.”
-Jose Contreras, English junior[/su_quote]
Lopez believes that UTRGV values the inclusion and representation that international students bring to the campus.
[su_quote]“We are very excited for events like this because we want to show the cultures from some of the students at UTRGV, so we want to bring the world to UTRGV in a way.”
-Samantha Lopez, Director of International Student Admissions and Student Services[/su_quote]
According to Lopez, with UTRGV being the home over 700 international students, events like these are vital for the comfort of the students across the campus.
