Reflections on the 2015 SFU Surrey Open House
Yuri Artibise
On Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 Simon Fraser University’s Surrey Campus hosted their 2015 annual Global Community Open House. This annual event is a vibrant event with engaging entertainment, interactive exhibits and displays, and captivating presentations and workshops that highlight SFU’s community programs, services, and partners. The event showcases SFU Surrey's strengths, and enhance its reputation as an institution that is student-centred, research-driven, and community-engaged.
This year’s Open House attracted a broad cross-section of nearly 3,000 prospective students, parents, teachers, researchers, counselors, and community members. The focus of the Open House were the more than 60 interactive exhibits and displays highlighting SFU's people, programs, services, and partners. These exhibits provided information about academic programs and student services and included demonstrations, presentations, and opportunities to interact with SFU students, faculty, staff, and volunteers.
SFU Public Square hosted a room at the event, where participants could learn more about our activities and programming. Over the course of the evening, we engaged with a number of students, parents, and community members. Visitors were able to take part in a presentation about our events and volunteer opportunities; share their thoughts about community and campus engagement; and play “Public Square Bingo” for a chance to win prizes.
The Open House also featured activities for all ages, including food and entertainment from world cultures, campus tours, Kids and Global Engagement Zones, and a scavenger hunt. There was also a SFU Surrey “Post Office” where you could send postcards to your friends and family around the world, and a Pixelgram Printing Station, where you could print a free photo from your Instagram stream. One of the highlights of the Open House was the centre stage, which hosted cultural performances and entertainment throughout the event. The SFU Public Square team was particularity impressed by the Lorita Leung Chinese Dance Company and the featured concert performance of Vancouver Indie-Folk band, Good for Grapes.
If you haven’t been to a SFU Surrey Open House yet, we recommend that you check it out next year!
Yuri Artibise is SFU Public Sqaure's External Projects and Communication Manager.