By Ethan Hogan
Contributing Writer
It’s not everyday you get to play Jeopardy with your friends on a big projection screen at the MUB, and it’s not everyday that you can address diversity on campus.
Delta Xi Phi held a multicultural game night on Wednesday in the Entertainment Center of the MUB. Traditional games of Jeopardy and Bingo were played, but with a multicultural twist. The subjects and questions were meant to get the players thinking about topics like diversity and gender equality on campus. Prizes included a Bluetooth speaker, a pint glass set, posters and superhero themed gym bags.
“It’s like that show where the points don’t matter,” said Anna Parsons, the organizer of the event.
Parsons explained that the idea behind the event was to facilitate learning in a fun competitive way. The games were less about winning and more about getting students to think about topics that they may have otherwise overlooked.
Amanda Gilmore of Delta Xi Phi got to the entertainment room early and explained why multicultural events are important.
“UNH doesn’t have a lot of multiculturalism on campus so being able to promote it and bring more awareness to it is important,” said senior Lindsay Gross adding, “Being able to bring awareness to the school with fun events that aren’t just lectures.”
Ten brothers from Phi Kappa Alpha participated in the games. With the participants split into three teams with names like “Celery”, “Potato” and “Broccoli” the game of Jeopardy began.
The categories included titles like “Let’s talk feminism,” “My Homies Don’t Appropriate,” and “Color me Rainbow,” and teams chose varying levels of difficulty ranging from $100 to $5,000. Once the questions appeared on the projector, teams would shout out their best guesses as quickly as they could.
One of the questions asked, which Greek letter stands for international gay rights, stumped even the teams in the lead. It’s lambda.
Parsons admitted that the questions were hard, and that if the teams were close they would get points.
“That’s okay, it’s supposed to be about learning,” said Parsons.
Stephen Kimball, a Phi Kappa Alpha brother and “Broccoli” team member explained why he takes multicultural awareness seriously.
“Everyone should care about diversity because you can accidently offend people if you don’t know their background,” said Kimball adding, “being diverse and learning cultures through other people is the best way to learn and you can find out a lot about what goes on around the world without just watching TV or reading a book.”
Due to technical difficulties, the game switched from jeopardy to bingo without missing a beat. Words like sexism and prejudice filled a grid, and when players thought they heard Parson say one of the word’s definitions they’d place a bead on that box. The first person with six across won.
Eventually the projector was up and running, and the game switched back to Jeopardy.
Team Broccoli came out with the win but wasn’t looking to boast. Parsons, the event coordinator, had given teams the benefit of the doubt many times. What was important to Parsons was that students got the chance to talk about diversity in an interactive way.