Brandon Bell
Staff Writer
The charters of two new student groups, the First Generation Students Organization (FGSO) and Let’s Taco About Food, were approved by Campus Council on Thursday, April 27. Both groups are the latest groups to be chartered, after the European Students Association’s charter was approved on April 13.
FGSO seeks to provide resources for students who are the first in their families to attend college, and Let’s Taco About Food is dedicated to bringing college students together around cooking and food-related events.
“Both of these organizations enrich student life by providing support and additional activities for the students to benefit from,” Jordan Griffith ’19, at-large member of the Campus Council, said.
Emilee McCubbins ’20 and Margie Sosa ’20, co-presidents of FGSO, welcomed the Campus Council’s decision on their charter.
“We’ve sort of been in the process for a few months,” Sosa said. “So it’s really nice to finally be a recognized organization on campus.”
At their first meeting on April 26, Sosa said that they had already received a large amount of interest.
“We actually had a really good turnout,” Sosa said. “We had a lot of people come up to us and tell us that they were really proud to see that this organization has come to campus.”
As a chartered organization, FGSO plans to host a variety of events, including a “Back to School Cookout” and workshops targeted towards first generation college students. McCubbins is also attempting to reach out to Wooster High School.
“We’d really love to get in contact with [the high school] to try to set up workshops… to help the students there get prepared for college and help with their transition,” McCubbins said.
Carly Mandell ’19, co-president of Let’s Taco About Food with Rie Matsuzaki ’19, said that their organization had similarly started meeting this semester and was eager to become more active next semester.
“We [tabled in Lowry and] have about 100 people signed up to get regular e-mails from us,” Mandell said. “Once we get the budget, I think we’ll definitely have more people in our regular meetings.”
Mandell said she met Matsuzaki when they took the same psychology class, and realized together that food could bring about new intercultural connections on campus.
“Food is a good way to show your culture,” Mandell said, noting the value she placed in her own culture as a Jewish person. “I realized [with Matsuzaki] that domestic and international students really keep to their own groups, so I thought food would be a good way to get rid of those boundaries.”
Next year, the group wants to host a Food Festival to show how different cultures make the same type of foods, like pasta, as well as another event to teach students food etiquette from multiple cultures. Mandell also said the group would consider working with other student organizations, like ISA or Hillel, which host food-related events on campus.
“We have a lot of cool students right now [who cook], and I’m excited to see [their] perspective on food,” Mandell said.