Welcome to API Students Leads!
The API Students Leads experience will be like no other!
As your conference Coordinator it is our pleasure to welcome you to our website and hopefully to our Student Leadership Conferences family. The API Conference was created to provide a welcoming space for API student leaders, advisors, and allies to learn leadership tools and skillsets that will motivate them to facilitate the necessary conversations and work that needs to happen on our campuses. Our conference will consist of experiential workshops and dynamic keynote sessions in the hope to provide a supportive environment for API student leaders and allies to discover their true leadership potential and be affirmed in the space they choose to stand. The API Conference seeks further to empower student leaders to create a more accepting, equitable environment, and campus through social action.
At each conference we want to make sure our learning outcomes are always to raise awareness, increase knowledge, and develop skills. At the conclusion of all of our conferences we provide students the opportunity to develop action plans with other colleges and universities to facilitate change on their campuses. We hope that you are as excited as we are and we hope to see you in Los Angeles.
Raise Awareness
- Awareness of and ability to explore aspects of the API community.
- Self-awareness about their own biases, fears, and comfort levels with/of the API community
- Awareness of the “diverse” dimensions of diversity including: sexual orientation, ability, age, ethnicity, gender identity, geographic origin, national origin, race, religion /spiritual traditions, and socioeconomic class.
- Awareness of inequity of privilege within and beyond the API community
- Empathy and concern about the impact of social injustice.
- Taking the important steps to promote becoming an ally on their campus
Increase Knowledge
- Understanding that a true leader values and empowers all the members of the group.
- Understanding the levels of prejudice and how earlier levels pave the way for even more damaging levels.
- Learning more about the history of diversity in America.
- Learning more about global diversity issues –e.g. genocides that have occurred within their lifetimes and are still occurring, as well as in the past.
- Increasing knowledge base about each of the dimensions of diversity.
- Understanding of the essential vocabulary related to API cultures.
Develop Skills
- Communicate effectively, both verbally and non-verbally
- Develop the skills of inclusive leadership, valuing and involving all members of API community
- Invite others to open up and share their stories through an attitude of respectful interest and curiosity, using open-ended questions
- Respond to statements or acts of bias in a way that invites dialogue rather than debate or arguments
- Stand up and speak out for their own rights and for the rights of others
- Develop and maintaining Safe Spaces on campus
Plan for Social Action
- Take a leadership role in service projects and other programs that serve the API community
- Increase their interactions with people different from themselves
- Work effectively and create inclusion on campus
- Actively try to impact those who are within their spheres of influence regarding issues of bias, discrimination, and social justice
- Make a positive difference on their campuses and in their communities
A National Conference for API Student Leaders, Advisors, and Allies
The overarching goal of the API Students Leads Conference is to help students become stronger leaders and allies to their campus community by practicing inclusion in their organizations and campuses. The API Conference empowers them to create a more accepting, equitable environment, and preparing them to work effectively in a diverse workplace. To this end, experiential workshops and discussions will focus on the following four crucial areas for learning:
