International Dinner

On May 2, 1925, the University YMCA's Friendly Relations committee held its first International Banquet, for 300 students from 29 nations. Every year until 1950 each American student invited brought a student from abroad as a guest, a speaker on world affairs gave the address, and the foreign students answered a roll call of the nations. From 1938 the banquet was held in the Y's new Latzer Hall, and from 1936 the YMCA and YWCA held it together.

In 1984 the Y closed its International Festival with a dinner in Latzer Hall, cooked by the student associations themselves. With the Cosmopolitan Club and the University's international student office it became the yearly International Dinner and Performance Night: volunteer cooks bring dishes from their home countries, students and community groups perform, and from 1989 to 2016 the John W. Price Award for international understanding was given there. It sold out every year from 2008 into the 2010s, and the 40th, in 2025, was served by local immigrant-owned restaurants.