39th International Festival
by Byron Lewis

On November 4th, the University of Illinois Springfield, celebrated the 39th Annual International festival. This years festival started off with a bang, with the help of a local middle eastern belly dance troop.

Students and locals from all over the Springfield area came to take in a taste of international food, drink and culture. The university estimates that nearly one thousand people attended this years festival.

International Program Director Erika Suzuki had this to say about the festival's impact on foreign student morale.

"I think that the international festival makes them feel better, because you know, they wear their home country costume, they enjoy their home country food, so being close to their home country's culture makes them comfortable, feel better, I believe."

In additional to free ethnic food, music and dance from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin america. Attendees were able to see a fashion show with authentic ethnic costumes.

Plans for next years festival include, a series of basic language classes and extending the festival to a whole day.  

Thanksgiving Break

This fall, the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS) has implemented a drastic change to their semester schedule. In years past, UIS would give students a whole week off for Thanksgiving Break and then the students would come back for a few more weeks until the 2nd full week of December when they would have finals. Instead, this year, UIS has only given students Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday off. This has proved difficult for students as some had to miss Thanksgiving for class on Wednesday and the ones who were able to leave had to pay for more expensive transportation as a result.

 Andrew Schwiebert, student at UIS, shared his thoughts on the break, "So it really didn't help me, uh, stay with my family longer, more or less. And it didn't actually help me enjoy a break."

 As this is the first year that UIS has implemented this change, it is unclear what will happen in the future. One thing that is sure is that many students are upset with this change and voicing their opinions, as no one wants to get their Thanksgiving dinner from a vending machine.

With Thanksgiving break coming to an end as well as the nice weather, UIS students prepare for finals. The best location to focus is the Brookens Library.  Finals brings a lot of stress but some students have found a formula to deal with the studyguides and papers that are due at the end of the semester here on campus.

With the end of the semester coming soon students are quickly running out of their meal plans.

Cheap, easy to store foods, are a common place among students.

 Students in the dorms aren’t allowed to have hot plates or anything gas powered. So students are limited to food that can be easily microwaved in less than 5 minutes or less.

Even students in the townhouses and apartments are often forced to eat these foods. Groceries are expensive so a majority of students live off cheap foods.

Students often find themselves eating not-so-healthy foods to stay sustained. Foods like Top Ramen, Easy Mac, microwavable dinners are very common in student’s refrigerators.

Housing at UIS Larrieu VOSOT 2

Housing at UIS

Donald Larrieu

 

Students at the University of Illinois Springfield are fed up with the housing department. Juniors, seniors and some sophomores are able to move into the town houses or apartments after living in the dorms, but the pros do not always outweigh the cons. UIS senior, Elijah Pounds, explains why moving out to the townhouses is not all it is cracked up to be. 

"I mean, I just think it's kind of crazy how we spend all this money paying to housing and we cant even get things fixed in a timely manner. We have my oven that's broken right now. We can't even use it to make a pizza" 

Students pay $3,275 dollars per semester, around $700 dollars a month, to live with blown lights, worn out furniture and broken appliances. With housing rates scheduled to increase next year, students are eager to see improvements in their quality of living.