Update: The Meet will have its final meeting of winter term on Feb. 26th. Organizers are searching for a temporary venue during spring term, but if none is found The Meet will not run through spring term.
The Meet is being canceled during spring term due to construction in the EMU, and students like Pooria Manoochehri will feel its absence.
When Manoochehri first arrived at University of Oregon from Iran, he was filled with culture shock and loneliness.
 
When he came to The Meet, everything changed. The Meet is exactly what it sounds like: an event for students to meet up with people, familiar and unfamiliar, from any background. Every week 100-150 students come through from every culture represented at the UO.
“When I came to The Meet all of these perceptions changed,” he said. “I saw a lot of other people who are struggling with the stuff that I’m struggling with in my life and enjoying the same stuff that I’m enjoying.”
Manoochehri soon became The Meet’s Supervising Programing Manager.
The Meet is often punctuated by icebreakers. Megan Garland, a representative of UO Study Abroad programs, lead one related to languages and traveling to coincide with studying abroad where members of each group would teach everyone words in a different language.
Saba Moslehi was involved in an icebreaker like this, and in her circle, three girls were teaching Mandarin Chinese.
“One of their names was Shadgol, which means happy flower in Farsi,” she said. “She’s from a part of China that had roots in Persian language and that was very interesting to me.”
Garland said that this connection with other people and their culture is what makes The Meet so special.
When she went to The Meet, she spent a lot of time speaking with a girl from South America about the differences between education systems in the U.S. and Mexico.
“She grew up in a completely different culture than me,” Garland said, “but here we are in the same room talking about similar issues and worries.”
Aside from the opportunity to meet others, The Meet offers opportunities to learn about other groups on campus. Every week a different group is represented. Past representatives have been from the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence, The Women’s Center, and Study Abroad Programs.
Manoochehri emphasized that these opportunities to connect with others extends beyond The Meet itself. The Meet is a gateway to the Mills International Center, a space in the EMU where anyone is welcome to read, study, socialize, and so on as they’d like. It also offers many resources concerning different cultures.
Although The Meet may not happen for a few months, the Mills International Center has events planned to make up for it. One of these is a world poetry night happening in May, where students can read original, cultural poetry.
In the mean time, Manoochehri encourages students to come to The Meet when they can.
“I try to reach out and grab anyone who’s passing to come,” he said. “I really want others to enjoy the same feeling I had.”
The Meet will be hosted for the rest of winter term by the Mills International Center every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the EMU Taylor Lounge.