Although most prospective first-years who attended A Day On College Hill left campus yesterday, about 135 students of color remained to attend the two-day Third World Welcome program, which began last night and will end this evening.
After registration for TWW Wednesday evening, invited students and their parents attended a dinner in Sayles Hall with faculty members, administrators and deans.
The evening included a two-hour cultural show featuring performance groups geared toward students of color and a late night ice-cream social.
Today, TWW participants have the opportunity to attend classes "handpicked" by the program's staff, Browne said.
TWW, which is sponsored by the Office of Admission and the Bruin Club, is "designed to give another perspective of college life at Brown directed largely towards students of color," said Graham Browne '08, one of the interns in the admissions office who helped plan the event.
Folashade Modupe, who hails from the Washington, D.C.-area, said she "decided to come to TWW because I wanted to get a minority perspective on Brown."
Modupe, who is deciding between Columbia University and Brown, said she's "leaning more towards Brown."
"The majority of students who come to (TWW) end up coming to Brown," Romans said.
"It's been pretty encouraging," said Amanda Machado, of Tampa, Fla., who added that attending ADOCH and TWW has made her decision between Brown and Stanford University - which she described as well-known for having a strong Chicano studies center and a culturally aware undergraduate population - "a little bit easier." At TWW, "I've heard from a lot of students about how active the cultural clubs are," she said.
"The diversity of Brown is what makes it unique, and so I wanted to understand what exactly is going on here," said Saurya Velagaeudi '10. Velagaeudi lives in Bloomfield, N.J., and said he has decided to attend Brown over Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and Columbia.
"Plus, coming to TWW is another day off from school," he added, smiling.
A lunch with current minority students, a student panel and an activities fair focusing on groups geared to students of color conclude TWW before the final farewell reception this evening.
TWW has occurred both before and after ADOCH in years past, but "we've found recently that it works most effectively to have it after, so that students who are coming for both can ride the ADOCH train," said Angela Romans, director of minority recruitment and associate director of admission.
Though Romans acknowledged that ADOCH does "attempt to address" the issue of minorities at Brown, she said having a program specifically for students of color is more effective. "Sometimes it's harder for students of color to find each other and to find resources that are devoted towards their experiences within the context of the larger ADOCH," she said.
TWW is open to "students of color who self-identify as one of the groups that the federal government recognizes as students of color," Romans said.
During Romans' time in the admissions office, TWW and ADOCH have been structured as complementary programs, she said. Romans has been coordinating TWW for two years and previously worked on organizing ADOCH for about five years.
The event has been occurring annually in "various iterations and various forms for easily 15 to 20 years," according to Browne.
