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Courtney Weatherburne reporting
Apart from the classroom sessions at the University of Belize, many academic activities are held to engage students and foster critical discussions. One of those activities is the Di Silvaana Udz Lechka series named in honor of Dr. Silvaana Udz for her contribution to Literature and Arts in Belize. Ivory Kelly, one the organizers of the lecture series strongly supports the importance of informal education and training in the development of the student.

Ivory Kelly, Organizer
"It is not sufficient for our university students to pursue training or preparation for the job market. That is an important aspect of education of course but we also want to develop other aspects of their gifts. Students who are creative in the arts are able to apply those creativity in the workplace and just to feed their souls and so we really wanted this series to galvanized that aspects of our students development."

For students from the Faculty of Education and Arts, an key part of their studies is the practice and discipline of incessant reading and writing. Godfrey Smith, guest lecturer advised students that in order to write about something you have to experience it, and many times that means venturing out into the periphery.

Godfrey Smith, Invited Lecturer
"Where will that well-roundness come from? Where will that experience of hardship, adversity, a break in routine - something sudden that you don't expect - all of this I think what goes to building that experience, that thing inside you that you can drawn when you least expect because you've experienced it, so you have to experience the taste of alcohol, the smell and even taste of marijuana, various things. How else will you be able to write about it?"

And how did the students feel about it?

Kadijah Marin, UB student
"It has been enlightening. One of the things that I appreciate most about is that we have Belizean authors being highlighted and that's something that we don't see often and so the opportunity to be in the presence of Belizean authors and seeing them getting the reverence that they should get has been amazing. It's actually one of the things that need to be done regularly, not that it become saturated you don't want to attend but to that effect that we can reach not just the university population, but down lower Lets target out standard 6 students, our high school students so that they could be able to foster that love and yearning for it and it will show up in our exams, it will show up in our every day personalities over our people."

Khaleella Arzu, UB student
"So far it's been pretty exciting. I am quite excited to be here. I like the fact that we are actually honoring one of our UB lecturers, she is very prolific I would like to add, actually she has taught me several courses before and I really enjoy Dr. Udz."

Eric Neal, UB student
"It was a new experience. I've never been in an environment where we are honoring a Belizean hero as it pertains to the arts and for me it's quite revealing. I wasn't even aware of what she has done for literature and English in Belize thus far."

Now while the students were excited about the series, the very honored Silvaana Udz shared her excitement and her view on the 2importance of this event for not only UB students but for nation building.

Silvaana Udz
"As they say in Creole I am glad frighten. I can't even begin to tell you how much this means. Its very humbling but the best part is that its colleagues, people I work with who I admire. These are people like Amado and his writing - Ivory and her short stories. I could never match up to that level and that they saw fit to name this lecture series after me. Best of all they spelt the word lecture in Creole, so we continue the perpetration of learning just from the visual, so every year when students come to this lecture series and get exposed to Belizean regional and foreign writers they also will be exposed to the fact that you don't have to stomp out Creole to learn the much needed global English."

The UB Jaguar Salon Series features a number of artistic and intellectual presentations including The Evening of the Arts, UB Poetry Night as well as dramatic presentations among others.