A poster of Muhammad Ali, a softball mitt and a rose are allpart of an exhibit on campus that is as eclectic and diverse as thestudents who contributed to it.

The exhibits on display in the anthropology museum, located onthe first floor of Mendocino Hall, are culturally relevant tostudents in the Educational Opportunity Program’s LearningCommunities project. These students are freshmen and the firstgeneration of their families to attend college. They enroll in thesame set of core classes, one of which is Cultural Anthropology. Aspart of the class and the EOP, the students have participated in amini-exhibit of family trees, artifacts and mementos, all of whichare symbols that represent the students to the rest of theworld.

Though the students were only required to trace their heritageback three generations, many choose to go back much farther thanthat. They not only found their heritage in the project, but alsofound themselves.

Terry Castaneda is a professor in the learning communitycultural anthropology class and the director of the exhibit,”Exploring Culture & Diversity in HigherEducation.” “I put the project together so studentscould see how families break down and to make students aware ofwhere they come from,” said Castaneda.

The students were instructed to bring in an artifact torepresent themselves, as well as an artifact to represent someaspect of their family traditional heritage. Each student had adifferent type of artifact to represent themselves, ranging from asoftball jersey to a photograph of Tupac to a Bible with a half apage torn out, which the student felt represented her frustrationsin dealing with the world.

The range of objects that were brought in to represent eitherthemselves or their families showed the wide range of diversity inthe student body today, Castaneda said.

The open house and reception for the displays will be held Todayfrom 2 to 3 p.m. The event will feature a variety of artifacts anddisplays from various cultures. Exhibits include a student’spersonal interpretation of the American flag, and a mix ofdifferent dress styles for a mix of different cultures.

Also on display will be different styles of dress and outfitsfor different Vietnamese men and women that one student chose torepresent his past. “It’s a part of my culture that hasbeen going on for generations before me and it will continue formany more generations after me,” said Thoy Nguyen.

Other items are less cultural and more personal, like thesoftball jersey from Versha Patel’s freshman year in highschool. “It means much more because all members of the teamsigned it,” wrote Patel on the exhibit’s plaque.

Students were instructed to create a kinship diagram startingwith themselves and tracing their family back as far as theirgreat-grandparents. Every student was instructed to trace back atleast three generations, but going back four of even fivegenerations was recommended.

Any other data, such as personal names, dates and places ofbirth or death were optional for family members stretching beyondthe students and his or her parent’s generations. Next,students were told to bring in at least one photograph and oneartifact that could represent them to the rest of the world.Included in this group of artifacts are the different ceremonialcostumes from the Vietnamese student, a Raggedy Ann doll, and aRompope Esmeralda liquor bottle. The students have a great varietyof artifacts that represent the richness of cultural diversitywithin the group.

“I get a kick out of students realizing the diversityamongst themselves. All students realize something different aboutthemselves,” said Castaneda.

The different students have different Americanized mementos thatare meant to represent the part of their lives that they want toshare with the rest of the student body. All the students have sometype of family heritage item that shows the diversity among thegroup.

“I feel I attain a great respect form the studentsthroughout and along the semester. I wish kids knew how to do akinship chart before they took this class, if we could start withthe exhibit instead of finishing with it, the students could learnso much more. But the program is still effective and it works tolet the kids understand who they are and where they comefrom,” Castaneda said as she finished setting up the studentdisplays.