Sacramento State students and faculty will come together to celebrate art and culture at the Crocker Art Museum on Thursday for its annual U-Nite event.

University night, also known as U-Nite, is a collaborative event between the Crocker Art Museum and Sac State’s College of Arts and Letters that invites students to appreciate the talent of the school’s faculty.

The event first began in 2012 and continued for three years until staffing issues resulted in a two-year hiatus. Last year the event made a comeback that Crocker adult education coordinator, Erin Dorn, couldn’t have anticipated.

“We were kind of blown away by the reaction of the community last year,” Dorn said. “We didn’t know what the reaction to U-Nite was going to be and we were hoping for a few hundred people, but we had almost a thousand people attend, and it was just an exciting evening.”

Dorn said the museum will host multiple presentations and performances from over 30 faculty members and will take place in nine different areas of the museum.

External relations and communications coordinator for Sac State’s College of Arts and Letters An Vo said she hopes that students check out the museum to see what faculty members have been working on.

“It’s a great opportunity to see [faculty] in their field and in their element which sometimes you don’t see in the classroom,” Vo said.

U-Nite will host performances, talks, film screenings and creative collaborations, according to a news release from the museum.

“There are multiple things running all at once so students can sort of look through their schedule and see what interests them or if there’s a particular faculty member that they wanted to see,” Vo said.

Crocker Museum spokeswoman Karen Christian said events like U-Nite help remind students the museum is a place where they can celebrate creativity.

“We want everyone in our community, in this case especially students, to know that the museum is their museum, it’s here for them,” Christian said. “This is an opportunity to celebrate the relationship that we have with the community and enhance it specifically with members of the college community.”

U-Nite will be held from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and will be free for free for Crocker members and Sac State students, faculty and staff. For the general public, admission to the exhibits will be $12 for nonmembers of the museum, $5 for Sacramento State alumni and free for Crocker members and Sac State students, faculty and staff.