Southland college students celebrate Thanksgiving

Students at Southland universities are celebrating Thanksgiving in a wide variety of ways. Officials at Pomona College opened their homes Thursday to any students who for one reason or another opted to stay put for Thanksgiving. At Pomona College, 1,500 students live on campus, and about 100 students RSVP'd for Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum's Thanksgiving dinner.

"My partner is vegetarian," said Feldblum, "so we try to have everything be vegetarian except for the turkey and the turkey gravy."

After the meal, conversations, board games and a movie help to fill the time.

"I’m touched by students who say, ‘This is so great to be here, have a home-cooked meal and also be able to be with my friends.'"

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Feldblum says some students prefer to avoid strained family relations, or questions about their plans after college. At her dinner, she says, all they’ll have to worry about is helping to clean up.

Across the border, more than 200 students from Azusa University spent their Thanksgiving paying a visit to the Mexicali area, carrying out a longstanding Thanksgiving tradition before returning to the Southland Sunday.

The students left on Wednesday by car and van to volunteer at rural clinics, social service agencies and churches, says university Vice President Matt Browning. The tradition is now just over 43 years old.

"[We] actually started working in some of the migrant farm worker camps on this side of the border down in the Imperial Valley," explained Browning. "Then a few years after that we realized that there was a greater need across the border."

Browning said the Thanksgiving trip helps broaden students’ world views as they prepare to enter their professions and the real world.

"All that I know how to do is do my best to challenge students to be responsible, to be culturally competent, to be articulate and clear with their faith and to approach the world with a concept that says everyone matters."

Some Occidental College students celebrated their faith back in L.A. with an interfaith Thanksgiving lunch. The new student interfaith council worked together to organize the event.

Susan Young, the college’s director of religious and spiritual life, keeps track of nine student religious groups.

"The Latter Day Saints student association, we have a Buddhist meditation group, and we have a Muslim student association, there’s a yoga group, Hillel," Young said.

They also have three Protestant groups and a Catholic group. Members from all of them joined other Occidental College students for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner around the theme, “Gathered and Grateful.”

"It was really nice because this is the first year we’ve had a really active Muslim student association group," Young said, "so we had a reading in Arabic, and then our Hillel students taught the community to sing a song in Hebrew."

Young says students formed the Interfaith Council last spring — not in reaction to friction, but out of a desire to promote communication among students who are religious and to promote volunteerism on and off campus.