Spartan’s Remix Fosters Community Through Collaboration and Connection

On Thursday, Michigan State University’s Office of Cultural and Academic Transitions (OCAT) hosted its annual Spartan Remix at the Breslin Center.

Spartan Remix is ​​MSU’s multicultural welcome festival, where students can learn about multicultural student organizations on campus and attend performances by different groups and artists.

Jayanti Collins, a sophomore human biology major, chose to volunteer for this year’s Spartan Remix. She remembers attending the event as a freshman and how helpful it was to her as a newcomer to campus.

“I had access to a lot of resources, I connected with a lot of organizations that were pro-black and pro-minority, so there was a good vibe here,” Collins said.

Spartan Remix operates similarly to Sparticipation, MSU’s annual Registered Student Organization (RSO) event, where each RSO comes together to promote its clubs. However, Spartan Remix is ​​a scaled-down version that prioritizes multicultural groups on campus.

“It creates a space for minorities and people of color to come and hang out,” Collins said. “At Sparticipation, it’s a lot. It’s hard to navigate, but here, everything is right in front of you. Super easy, super energy.”

Environmental engineering major Aleida Contreras and architecture sophomore TreShai Hubbard co-founded the RSO Women of Color in STEM organization. Contreras said Spartan Remix was a great way for them to not only connect with students of color on a more accessible scale, but also introduced them to other organizations.

“I think this is a great opportunity to connect minorities together,” Contreras said. “Not only can we connect with students who are more in line with our target demographic, but we can also connect with organizations that have the same goal as us, which is to focus on minorities.”

At Sparticipation, many student organizations are separated from each other because of the way the event is organized.

“At events like Sparticipation, we don’t get to see each other because it’s too big,” Contreras said. “So it narrows that section because we’re all minority-oriented, and unfortunately at Sparticipation, we’re not in the same area.”

Hubbard said WOCSTEM was able to connect with other RSOs almost immediately during Spartan Remix.

“We can meet many other multicultural organizations,” she said. “We have already met many people with whom we want to collaborate, because we want to expand our network of members.”

The theme for this year’s Spartan Remix was “Fostering Community Through Collaboration and Connection.” Devon Kuwanquaftewa, planning committee chair and coordinator of OCAT’s Student Success Initiative, said that when planning the theme and the event itself, the student voice was prioritized.

“We initially reached out to students to see who would be interested in planning this year’s Spartan Remix, and then from those responses we formed a committee,” he said.

The student committee consisted of four people, all of whom helped plan the event alongside Kuwanquaftewa and OCAT.

“A lot of them wanted to celebrate happiness, but also wanted to celebrate the need for us to come together as a community to achieve a greater purpose,” Kuwanquaftewa said.

In addition to the multitude of OSRs featured, multiculturalism and community on campus were celebrated through performances by groups and artists throughout the event. The student council also had input into the proposed performances, Kuwanquaftewa said.

Spartan Remix performers included Rodney Lamar Page, Amauri Park, CTRL+A, MSU Ballroom Dance, Fantasia Ballet Folklorico, Pass Dance Crew, Urban Dreams and the African Student Union.

“Ideally, (the student committee) just wanted a place where organizations could connect, from different backgrounds, and I think this is the perfect environment for that,” Kuwanquaftewa said.