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November 5, 2007
Unity Month celebration wants to know from all ‘What’s your story?’

By elizabeth elkins

What’s Your Story?” It’s an easy question to ask, but a hard one to answer. The planners behind this year’s Unity Month celebration have found a unique way to get people talking about who they are, where they are from and what they have been through by asking everyone on campus to answer that question. “What’s Your Story?” is the theme for Unity Month — a campuswide collaborative set of events designed to illuminate Emory’s diverse community.

“This is a theme applicable to everyone,” explained Unity Month planner and Office of Multicultural Programs and Services Associate Director Marc Cordon. “Unity Month has a stigma that it’s a celebration for people of color, but we are celebrating the entire community. Unity Month is about so much more than race or socio-economic status. By asking this question, we want people to explore the diversity of our community.”

OMPS is asking Emory community members to do just that by submitting a video answer to “What’s Your Story?,” with the best student and staff video each taking home a $500 prize. That contest, however, is just the tip of the iceberg for Unity Month. With a month-long list of events that began with the fourth annual Race Dialogue led by Provost Earl Lewis and Emory Pride’s Annual Drag Show, Unity Month offers something for everyone.

Cordon said the Unity Month event he is most looking forward to is the keynote speech by Kip Fulbeck. “He is the inspiration behind our theme. He’s a Renaissance man: a professor, a surfer and a photographer of mixed race. He was so used to being asked, ‘What are you?’ that he began telling his story across the country,” Cordon said. “He’s incredibly positive and high energy. It will be an amazing evening.”

For more information on Unity Month and the “What’s Your Story?” video contest, visit www.unitymonth.com.

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