The Arab Student Association (ASA) at the University of Minnesota is hosting its first-ever event virtually this week.

The cultural group registered as an official organization in the fall in order to create a collective Arab community on campus, encompassing all religions, nationalities and ethnic backgrounds, said Nadia Aruri, the president and co-founder of ASA.

Despite having known many Arab students on campus, the leaders of ASA said they lacked an official group to foster community and host cultural events and activities.

“Having alumni in my family, I knew that community was a big thing that was missing at the University,” said Farah Ahmed-Bahgat, vice president and co-founder of ASA. “So we took it upon ourselves to spark a sense of community for those who resonate with the culture as well as those who want to learn more about it.”

Susan Abed, a third-year student at the University, said she has felt a lack of representation and sense of community.

“When I first heard about ASA, I was very excited because growing up, I wasn’t really around Arabs. To be at a school where an actual [Arab] Association was forming in front of my eyes really made me feel very excited,” Abed said.

She said she hopes the group will do a good job representing and sharing Arab cultures to University students.

Although the pandemic is not an ideal time to start a student group, the board members took it upon themselves to create an inclusive space for Arab students, Ahmed-Bahgat said.

The board members of ASA said they are hopeful for the future as they are in the beginning stages of planning events and initiatives for Arab students.

“I really would love to see this flourish into, not only a University of Minnesota group, but as well as something that kind of brings those in Minnesota together,” Ahmed-Bahgat said.

With their first event coming up this week, ASA hopes to host many more events including virtual galas, game nights, study sessions, cultural nights, bake sales and more, Aruri said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, young adults experiencing food insecurity have been more likely to face discrimination and feel unsafe in their neighborhoods, according to a report published by University of Minnesota researchers.

The study, published in October, analyzed online surveys about food behaviors, neighborhood safety and discrimination from 218 young adults during the stay-at-home order in Minnesota.

Nicole Larson, the study lead and senior research associate in the School of Public Health, said she hoped to gain a better idea of what resources could assist young people to ensure they have access to adequate food and healthy living during the pandemic.

“The pandemic in combination with already present structural determinants of health further limited access to healthy foods for emerging adults from racial or ethnic marginalized backgrounds,” Jaime Slaughter-Acey, co-author of the study, said in an email.

Larson and the five other researchers on the project found that respondents who were food insecure were less likely to have fruits or vegetables at home compared to those who were food secure. They were also more likely to have frequent fast-food restaurant meals.

Larson said the study was important to bring to food pantries during the pandemic.

“[The study] gives [food pantries] a sense of what are the biggest challenges for emerging adults during this time and what emerging adults were looking for when they went to a food pantry,” Larson said.

Rebecca Leighton, health promotion specialist at Boynton Health, founded the Nutritious U Food Pantry as a graduate student in 2017 to address college student food insecurity.

According to Leighton, 85% students who use the pantry feel that they are getting enough to eat. Additionally, 97% of students say that they feel reduced stress after visiting the food pantry — but students face many more challenges during the pandemic, Leighton said.

Nutritious U is collaborating with another food bank, Second Harvest Heartland, on an initiative called Minnesota Central Kitchen, Leighton said. The program offers free chef-prepared meals for college students and others experiencing food insecurity.

The Minnesota Central Kitchen initiative began in March, but in recent weeks it has partnered with Nutritious U, Swipe Out Hunger and Campus Club to bring meals to University students.

Campus Club prepares the meals, and Nutritious U and Swipe Out Hunger ensure they are distributed to students in need.

“[Minnesota Central Kitchen] was a response to a growing-by-the-minute number of college students that were existing food insecure and or newly food insecure,” said Emily Paul, executive director of Minnesota Central Kitchen.

Paul said Second Harvest Heartland had not prepared meals before. But with their resources, they have been able to make free food during the pandemic for people experiencing food insecurity.

“Minnesota Central Kitchen is currently moving 300 meals per week to the UMN campus food shelf for distribution for undergraduate and graduate students,” Paul said.

According to Paul, the kitchen has spent almost $100,000 buying ingredients from farmers who identify as Black, Indigenous or people of color.

“We do know that food insecurity does disproportionately affect certain marginalized populations. Our students of color, BIPOC students and international students definitely have higher rates of food insecurity than their white counterparts,” Leighton said.

According to Larson, much more work needs to be done.

“We need to pay more attention to research in this area of interpersonal and structural racism that impacts food insecure people,” she said.

The Midwest Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Students Union held their annual conference last weekend to celebrate Asian Pacific Islander and Desi American culture, as well as and spark conversations about social justice issues.

The conference was originally set to be hosted at the University of Minnesota for the first time in March, but was postponed to the fall and held virtually due to COVID-19. Themed “Unwritten,” the MAASU conference was a three-day event of around 330 attendees focused on storytelling within APIDA communities.

The conference included workshops with an emphasis on intersectionality, covering several social justice topics such as identity, queer allyship, intergenerational trauma and allyship with the Black Lives Matter movement. It also included pre-recorded dance performances, an original play by the MAASU board, a fashion show and open mic performances.

Jenny Tam, executive director of the MAASU planning committee, said the goal of the event was to highlight the rich and diverse APIDA representation in Minnesota. The theme “Unwritten” is about understanding that everyone’s stories and histories are intertwined and connected to one another, she said.

“With the large Hmong, refugee and adoptee populations, we really wanted an opportunity to center a lot of these experiences that, even at MAASU, you don’t hear about,” she said.

In light of the presidential election, the police killing of George Floyd and increased xenophobia during the pandemic, Tam said she hopes to use storytelling as a form of healing and activism.

The conference featured two keynote speakers, Sonalee Rashatwar and Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, who discussed sexual trauma, body image issues and immigrant identities and refugee voices.

Mandy Huang, a conference attendee, said her past experiences with MAASU as a recent graduate and former planning committee member highlighted the amount of work necessary to host and plan such an event.

“I loved working with the planning committee because I got to meet so many amazing people. I want to give a shout out to the old and new planning committees, as they have all put so much time and effort into this conference,” Huang said.

When confronted with the choice of postponing or canceling the conference, Tam said her 40-member planning committee had worked too hard not to be recognized.

“When I think about the work, 100% I couldn’t have done it alone and with the vision, the planning, the execution, the dance we choreographed, the play we scripted, all of that was done by people in our community,” Tam said.

Vivian Pham, former outreach coordinator and attendee of the conference, discussed her past experience with MAASU.

“Being a part of MAASU was incredibly rewarding,” Pham said. “Being able to see the behind-the-scenes work of MAASU was not only interesting, but fulfilling as well.”

The University of Minnesota has over 1,000 student groups, with more being formed annually. To comply with Student Unions & Activities guidelines, new student organizations are joining the ranks during the COVID-19 pandemic in a largely virtual space.

The Minnesota Daily spoke to four new student organizations created this fall.

VERA

After noticing the lack of Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American (APIDA) female representation in the Multicultural Greek Council, Aileen Pham, president of VERA, decided to form a sorority interest group to create an inclusive space for women.

“We wanted to cultivate an inclusive space for womxn within Greek life, and we didn’t really find ourselves fitting in within other Multicultural Greek sororities,” said Yayoua Yang, internal vice president of VERA.

The six main pillars of the group include empowerment, unity, resilience, honesty, growth and identity, and VERA aims to empower women and women’s health, increase its network and generate important conversation within the APIDA community.

“One thing all the board members of VERA had in common was the idea of expanding the Multicultural Greek Council network and having other options available to womxn of color,” said Trinity Vang, public relations director of VERA.

The letter “x” in “womxn” is often used to be inclusive of transgender, nonbinary and other marginalized women.

VERA-fied, the group’s upcoming podcast that will be released at the end of October, will feature discussions with other student leaders about sexual health, mental health and engaging with other organizations.

Student Basic Needs Coalition

After observing the systemic issues within the education system, Alexandra Zykova recently founded the University chapter of the Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC).

“Our main goals are to ensure that students on campus have access to basic needs and they don’t have to stress about those issues outside of an academic environment of just succeeding in their courses as well as combating the continuing rising costs of college,” Zykova said.

SBNC’s vision for the current school year includes targeting food insecurity, housing insecurity and healthcare initiatives for students on campus.

“Especially with Swipe Out Hunger not being a service that students can use this fall semester, we realized that students do not have access to ready-made meals at the dining halls due to COVID-19 precautions. … our coalition is planning on hosting a contactless delivery service or a socially distant pop-up cafe on campus around mid-November and December,” Zykova said.

SBNC’s long-term goals include fighting for lease flexibility for on-campus housing and opening a closer farmers market to the campus community, she said.

Spectrum

Due to the lack of intersectional resources for Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American queer communities, Brandon Chen and Qabzib Hang, president and vice president of Spectrum, decided to form an advocacy organization to fill that gap.

“The goals of Spectrum include creating community [and] finding resources, allyship, and awareness through dialogue to empower the intersectionalities of APIDA and LGBTQIA+ identifying folx,” Hang said.

The group hopes to create a safe space for these specific identities and strives to increase awareness about the organization as well as host educational and social events.

“We are starting a biweekly initiative called Snacktime with Spectrum where we can gather allies and people who identify as queer APIDA and have educational discussions and social bonding events,” Chen said.

United Student Education

As a first-year student, navigating resources on campus can be difficult. Swati Rampalli, president of United Student Education, noticed the issue and formed the group to fix that gap.

“United Student Education is about hosting different computer science-based projects that are designed specifically for the purpose of reducing academic disparities and providing a supportive community for students at the U,” Rampalli said.

United Student Education is working on three main projects, including a Black Lives Matter database with resources, including podcasts, influencers, donation sites, petitions and other resources for allies and the community. The group is also working on a pen pal initiative linking University international students together and building an app to help students decide which courses to take.

“We also make sure that different types of struggles are represented through our projects, whether that is diversity, academics or mental health,” Rampalli said.

A person was assaulted near 5th Street and 14th Avenue Southeast late Saturday night around 1:00 a.m., according to a campus wide SAFE-U alert that was sent out Saturday morning.

Initial reports indicate that both suspects were male, between the ages of 17 and 22. One suspect wore a red sweatshirt while the other wore a gray sweatshirt.

The alert notes that the victim was assaulted and had their phone stolen before the suspects fled in a white BMW.

This is a Minneapolis Police Department case and community and campus members are strictly advised to use caution within the area.

This is a breaking news report. More information may be added as it becomes available.

An app founded by two University of Minnesota students launched in August to help streamline the process of creating study groups and meeting new people in college classes.

Amin Halimah, the app developer, co-founded the StudyU app in January 2020 with Amy Shah, the app designer. The StudyU app allows students to search for a study group or create their own group.

“The issue we wanted to fix was that at larger universities like the U of M where there are tens of thousands of students, it can be hard to meet people in lectures containing 100-plus students,” Halimah said.

StudyU for Shah and Halimah became a way to help students ease the stress of being at a large university where students do not interact with each other unless they are purposefully put in groups.

In her own classes, Shah said she struggled to make friends in her classes that were beyond acquaintances.

“It can be difficult to meet new people if you’re a freshman, transfer student or you don’t know a lot of people, so this is an easy way to connect with people,” Halimah said.

Since the launch, the application, which is available on iOS and Android, has gained almost 700 users in 116 different study groups.

Jiao Luo, a professor in the Carlson School of Management, plans to integrate StudyU in her classes. She said she felt that during the pandemic it is difficult for student engagement to occur over Zoom or other online platforms.

“In my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class, there are students from various schools such as Carlson, CLA, CFANS, etc., and we want to best support them to find their own study groups outside of the classroom,” Luo said.

With most classes online, the application provides students an outlet to meet other students without any social anxiety.

“We created this app as a way for students to connect with each other in certain classes where it’s difficult to do so. It’s just a place where people can feel comfortable meeting others without that anxiety of having to create a group with strangers,” Shah said.

Alex Wallace, a University student studying communications, uses the app for his psychology course.

“It does a really good job of suggesting which study groups you should join. Other similar apps require you to get the contact information from the other person, but this app is more user-friendly because it limits that interaction,” he said.

Since the launch, the app has mainly evolved to allow users to input feedback and share academic and mental health resources on campus.

Co-founders Shah and Halimah said they hope to expand the app to more users in the Twin Cities area and eventually to larger universities across the country.