The plush, behemoth of a coach bus lumbered to a curb stop at Louisville’s Belvedere entrance. IUS students poured out and scattered up the concrete ramp into the 10th annual WorldFest for the free, three-day event, hosted by the city of Louisville, to display its growing cultural diversity. The event highlighted food, music and culture from around the world. Spices sailed in the hot river breeze. The humidity carried distant rhythms of world music for blocks. After the bus arrived at the Belvedere entrance, most of the students headed straight into WorldFest, but a group of five students, led by Chris Cole, general studies senior, headed out on foot for the first IU Southeast scavenger hunt in downtown Louisville.

The Common Experience event “Volunteerism in Africa” focused on two individuals who volunteered in Africa and their involvement in educating youth. The speakers were introduced by Maria Accardi, assistant librarian and co-chair of the Common Experience Program, who said the purpose of the Common Experience for the 2011-12 school year is to join people together with the common theme of liberty and justice. The two women, Karen Kaye, adjunct instructor of English, and Jill Erwin, instructor of English at Elizabethtown Community College, both volunteered in different parts in Africa.

On most days in the Physical Sciences Building, professors may be heard instructing their students. However, on one Friday of each month, the sound of rumbling sewing machines can be heard from the building’s...