Students will find food, music and alcohol from around the world on the West Campus Plaza this upcoming Friday.
Campus Council will kick off its newest program-Fridays on the Plaza-and the International Association will be hosting its annual International Food Fest this week.
Performances by student groups-including the Duke Dhamaka Bhangra Team and Dance Black-will be hosted by the International Association.
In addition, Campus Council has hired Monopoli, a band from Washington D.C., to perform on the plaza.
Food provided by both organizations will be served on the plaza's elevated grassy dais, organizers said.
Fridays on the Plaza is one of Campus Council's latest projects. The Council will provide food, live music and alcoholic beverages on the plaza every second Friday of the month, members said, adding that quadrangle councils will host barbeques in their respective quads every third Friday of the month.
Campus Council President Jay Ganatra, a senior, said the majority of the social scene on campus is centered around selective living groups because they have the resources to organize large parties.
"There is a void of independent large social events on campus," he said. "We're the one group that really has the ability to do programs like this on a consistent basis. We can fill [the void] and we should fill it."
Junior Fiona O'Sullivan, Campus Council communications coordinator, said the event will allow students to socialize with people they might not normally see around campus.
"Students probably won't start walking up to random people and talking to them," she said.
"But you can hang out with people you want to hang out with but haven't had time to. Hopefully it can bring people together that way," O'Sullivan added.
Ganatra said if the afternoon programming is successful, he hopes to extend it to Friday nights.
"Hopefully at some point we can make the events on Friday nights and rival what goes on off campus," he said. "It's something we've been meaning to do and people have wanted us to do and we're delivering now."
At the International Food Fest-which started last year-cultural groups will showcase samples of their traditional cuisines.
"It allows the domestic students to see that there is a lot of [cultural] representation at Duke," said International Association President Yubo Gong, a senior.
"It will be more of a tasting event, allowing students to experience a wide variety of things," he added.
Gong said between 15 to 20 different cultural groups will participate this year. Unlike last year's event, where a $5 cover fee was charged, students will be able to enjoy the event for free this year, Gong said.
The combination of the two events was finalized last Thursday, O'Sullivan said.
"We basically decided last minute to combine the two events," Gong said. "There's a purpose to it-we can share the resources and the crowd."
O'Sullivan said the collaboration of the two events will help bring more students to the plaza.
"It will bring a more diverse group of people together," she said.
Gong added that Fridays on the Plaza will help attract more students to the International Food Fest.
"Beer on the quad will bring a different audience than the International Food Fest," he said. "This collaboration will give students more of an opportunity to be exposed to us."
The only possible problem Gong said he foresees is being overshadowed by Campus Council, which he said has a higher profile on campus than the International Association.
"I don't think it's a real problem," Gong said. "Everyone has something to gain from this very diverse experience."
Leaders from both organizations expressed an interest in continuing the collaboration.
"In the future, if this works out, we will work further on a preemptive basis to make [the events] more integrated," Gong said.
O'Sullivan said if the International Association approaches Campus Council next year to collaborate, the Council would be happy to do so.
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