The Office of Multicultural Affairs extends warm greetings and well-wishes as we enter the Holiday Season! May this be a time of joy and celebration for all members of the Stony Brook University community.  Good luck to all students as they prepare for the end of the semester and final exams. Cultural Connections will resume in Spring 2017. We wish you a safe and Happy New Year and look forward to serving you in the new year. Happy Holidays!

Yours in Diversity,

Cheryl Chambers 
Associate Dean of Students
Office of Multicultural Affairs
stonybrook.edu/oma
This December ... don't miss ... The Festival of Lights!

Join us for the 16th Annual Festival of Lights, an intercultural program about the diversity of religions through the many celebrations of the holiday season! 

Holiday displays and ethnic food samplings will be featured, and participants can make a variety of holiday crafts. Then the focus will turn to the main stage, with several presentations and cultural performances in song, dance, poetry and music!

~ Free and open to the University community and their guests ~
Coming up in the Diversity Film Series in Residential Programs ...
Lest We Forget
Thursday 12/1
8:00 PM
HDV/GLS Center
Film viewing and discussion

This documentary follows the events post-9/11, examining the roundups and racial attacks that continue to occur in the name of national security. The film contains stories told by individuals who have felt the severity of wartime racism in America and explores the sullied past in the hopes of creating lessons for a different future. Narrated by poet Suheir Hammad. Sponsored by Residential Programs and Presidential Mini-Grant for Departmental Diversity Initiatives.

World AIDS Day: December 1st

World AIDS Day is held yearly on December 1st as an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and raise awareness about this pandemic. Despite the virus only being identified in 1984, more than 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS, making it one of the most important global public health issues in history.  Stony Brook University joins in the celebration offering no cost, confidential HIV testing and support for students and HIV resource information for the campus community.  

Events:

Campus HIV Testing 
Location: UNITI Cultural Center, SAC
Free Confidential Testing
12-7 pm
Health professionals will administer the test and provide results in 2 minutes. Available to all students.

Location: SAC Plaza
Free Confidential Testing
12-3 pm
Planned Parenthood Testing Van. Available to all students.

Flu Vaccine Distribution
Location: UNITI Culture Center, SAC
Free flu vaccine to all eligible students.
12-2 pm


Health Fair
Location: Sidney Gelber Auditorium, SAC
12-2PM
Resource information tables to include LIAAC, Planned Parenthood, Pride for Youth, SBU LGBTQ*, SHAC, Student Health Services, Counseling and Psychological Services, Commuter Student Service, AIDS Peer Educators, SBU PrEP, and others.


Presentations

Read-in: ACT-UP Oral History Project
Location: Sidney Gelber Auditorium, SAC
5-6 pm

Jim Hubbard, Producer of United in Anger: A History of ACT UP
Location: Sidney Gelber Auditorium, SAC
8 pm 
Jim Hubbard shares insights into his history with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), including its quarter-century history and the continued struggle to affect public HIV-AIDS policy. 

Movie Screenings

All screenings held at the Sidney Gelber Auditorium, SAC

Rent
1-3 pm
In this musical, set at the dawn of the 1990s, a group of New Yorkers struggle with their careers, love lives and the effects of the AIDS epidemic on their community. 

Blood Brother Documentary
3:30 - 5 pm
Rocky Braat, a young man from a fractured family and a troubled past, went traveling through India without a plan. Then he met a group of HIV positive children living in an orphanage — a meeting that changed everything for him.

United in Anger Documentary
6-8 pm
A history of the AIDS activism movement comes from the perspective of people fighting the epidemic. Using oral histories of members of the ACT UP movement, the film depicts the efforts of this organization as it battles corporate greed, social indifference and government neglect.
Don't miss the final coffee hour of the semester from Latin American & Caribbean Studies! 
  Check out even more happenings in the latest Student Life Newsletter! Click below.
Are you a Resident Assistant or club leader?
Submit an event related to the diversity and inclusion theme of the month for funding! Submissions must be in by the 15th of the previous month. Click here if interested!
Resident Assistants!
Have a great bulletin board idea that celebrates diversity? Submissions must be in by the 15th of the month, within each month. Click here!
"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us."
Hal Borland
 Journalist and Author