Gee Mail: International Edition

As West Virginia University recently wrapped up its annual Diversity Week celebration, President Gordon Gee took Gee Mail to the streets – at the 2019 International Street Festival.
WVU is home to students from 118 countries, 50 states and all 55 West Virginia counties.

To highlight and embrace the University community’s wide range of backgrounds, Gee met up with students, faculty and staff at the street festival on High Street to learn more about their cultures.
“It is exhilarating — and necessary — to have people from different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different races and different viewpoints within a community,” Gee said. “But the real value lies in learning from each other through dally conversations and contact.”

The festival, sponsored by WVU’s Office of Global Affairs, Multicultural Programs, Graduate Education and Life and the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, hosted exhibitors from countries including Kuwait, Japan, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Spain and many more. Visitors could sample foods and learn about music, dance and fashion from various cultures.

“We must learn to live together to thrive peacefully in this sometimes divisive, splintered world that exists today,” Gee said. “And I believe, as we saw today, that West Virginia University can be an example of that principle.

“Some might call it a melting pot, but I just think of it as One West Virginia University.”