Curator: Nathan Celestine
International diversity and the significance attributed to representing an international community has throughout Fontbonne’s history, undergone change which has generally reflected expansion: not only development of the importance attributed to international diversity and representation, but development of what is actually meant by “international” to Fontbonne as an institution. From as early as 1936, this collection of seemingly miscellaneous Fontbonne memorabilia demonstrates precisely that development: beginning with documents from a newspaper that describe a particularly limited international focus, and illustrating that particular narrative of expansion thereafter through different mediums.
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Internationalism on Campus: The Font, November 1936
This article is one of the earliest international celebrations at Fontbonne. The “Dances of Nations” that the article describes was only part of a larger event celebrating student Athletes. The event, in which dances were performed that represented different nations, including Russia, the United States, Holland, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, and Scotland is fairly limited in geography: most of the nations that are represented are European, and all of them subscribe in some fashion, to a western culture. In addition, the students who conducted the dance groups seem to be domestic students themselves, given their primarily English first/ last names.
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Internationalism on Campus: The Font, May 1955
The picnic that this article describes demonstrates expansion in diversity as to what countries are represented at the event. The countries that are represented during this event, including Ecuador, Puerto Rico, China, and the Philippines show a transition; development of what is meant by “international”, here by representing countries that are not exclusively western and primarily European as the previous 1936 event had. In addition to this conscious choice of international representation, the article makes a point that many of the students participating in the event come from different international backgrounds.
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Internationalism on Campus: International Night, c. 1980
This image demonstrates further expansion of international diversity, here directly representing the African continent, which had gone without any sort of recognition in the two earlier events. Unlike the previous articles, this photograph depicts an event that occurred after the civil rights movement, and recognizes an African cultural background that had, within the historical contexts of the first two articles particularly been excluded.
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Internationalism on Campus: Barcelona Agreement, 1994
The draft of terms that outline the Barcelona Agreement between the CENP in Spain and Fontbonne demonstrates expansion of the significance attributed to international representation, here with Fontbonne actively taking the initiative to work with foreign institutions to promote international diversity on Fontbonne’s campus. This agreement is a shift from Fontbonne’s student-led activities promoting international recognition to the institution taking the responsibility to create diversity within the student body. This agreement is fairly recent and was the only one of its kind, as an active negotiation, in Fontbonne’s archives.
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Internationalism on Campus: Fontbonne University Alumni Art Exhibition of Taiwan, 2002
This book represents Fontbonne as an institution acknowledging international contributions from previous foreign students. The book demonstrates Fontbonne recognition of the contribution that international graduates had made to Fontbonne’s history, and the preservation of the artwork from those students into the physical medium of a full-color hardback book shows that this is a part of Fontbonne’s story that the institution seeks to maintain. This book marks the beginning for construction and application of how the international story is part of Fontbonne’s history.
