Comfort (food) and joy

Wicked beats and festive treats lit the faces of hundreds of guests as they dined and danced the night away at Concordia’s year-end International Students Holiday Party.

Close to 300 revellers cut loose at Espace Réunion, on December 22, for what’s arguably become the university’s most rollicking shindig and annual tradition.

Kehinde Adetiloye | Photo by Ryan Blau/PBL Photography

For a 12th year running, homesick students enjoyed lashings of seasonal cheer and spirit-lifting meals of turkey with all the trimmings.

Midway, floor-fillers spun by Montreal DJ James Karls morphed the Outremont reception hall into club-land as guests hit the dance floor till midnight.

Jemimah Akiro | Photo by Ryan Blau/PBL Photography

“Holidays can be a lonely time, but if you’re with people in the same situation, you connect,” says Jemimah Akiro, a native of Uganda and student in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science.

Nigeria’s Kehinde Adetiloye, a quality systems engineering student, made firm plans to party. “It’s a great way to bring us together,” Adetiloye says. “Otherwise we’d probably be sitting at home.”

Maya Johnson, a reporter from CTV Montreal News, attended Concordia’s year-end International Students Holiday Party. This is her report:



Concordia Provost David Graham said the night was a way to bring the university’s more-than 5,100 international students into the clan: “This gathering is about kinship and goodwill, because you really are among family, your Concordia family.”

Mahsa Alishahi-Tabrizi | Photo by Ryan Blau/PBL Photography

For Iran’s Mahsa Alishahi-Tabrizi, a graduate student in information systems engineering, it was high time to test the festive waters. “I’d read about the party and hoped it would be a fun networking opportunity,” Alishahi-Tabrizi says. “And I love to dance.”

Surveys by Concordia’s Advancement of Alumni Relations (AAR) showed strong demand for a dinner-dance-themed International Students Holiday Party. This year’s was no exception and the first with on-site dancing.

“In the past, students usually organized their own after-parties,” says Alumni Officer for Student Programs Rose Wangechi. “This year, like Santa, we wanted to deliver.”

Cheers! Getting into the spirit of the season. | Photo by Ryan Blau/PBL Photography

AAR did, with support from the Concordia University Alumni Association (CUAA).

“I look forward to this event because it gives me and my colleagues a terrific opportunity to meet hundreds of international students,” says Philippe Pourreaux, President of the CUAA.

Related links:
•    Concordia’s Advancement and Alumni Relations