For most prospective first-years, Wednesday night marked the end of A Day on College Hill and their visit to Brown - but for others, it was the beginning of another two-day event. The Third World Welcome program, organized by the Admission Office, kicked off with registration and host pairing in Petteruti Lounge yesterday at 5 p.m.
The program gives minority students in the accepted class of 2011 "the opportunity to experience the life of a student of color at Brown," said Marco Martinez '08, one of the program's three coordinators. The event has been in planning since last October, Martinez said.
Last night's events included a lecture for parents about "advising in the Brown curriculum" and a cultural show featuring different performance groups on campus. Events slated for today include time for prospective students to visit classes, a question-and-answer session with a panel of current minority students and a meet-and-greet with representatives from various cultural groups.
"The program has been running smoothly so far, and we're all hoping it will keep going this way and that they enjoy the rest of their stay," said program coordinator Danielle Dunlap '10.
A total of 140 prospective students attended this year's TWW, up from last year's attendance of 135, organizers said. Students of color made up a record-breaking 41 percent of the admitted class of 2011, up from 39 percent last year.
"We try our best to match the students with hosts from the same state or at least from the surrounding area," Dunlap said.
Dunlap is from Atlanta, but she hosted students from both Georgia and Texas - having lived in both places at different times in her life, she said, she would be able to relate to them or at least have some common ground to build a relationship.
Rocio Gutierrez, a prospective first-year from Brownsville, Texas, said she liked the openness of both the ADOCH and TWW programs.
"What I like is the freedom that we get, being able to choose between the different activities instead of having set schedules we need to conform to," Gutierrez said. Gutierrez has also attended Notre Dame and Princeton universities' admitted students programs in the past few weeks.
Some current students say TWW is the reason they chose Brown.
"TWW provided me with a better sense of Brown than ADOCH did," said Kelly Murguia '10. "There were just too many students and activities at ADOCH. It was really overwhelming."
The "Third World" in TWW is derived from its unofficial relationship with the Third World Center. The term "Third World" was adopted by Brown students in 1970 from Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth," which suggested the idea of minority students sharing commonalities and links between every diverse community, as well as to "promote a cultural empowerment and liberation in which people of color define themselves instead of being defined by others," according to the TWW invitation.
