December 2024 at the AAPI Center

Seasons greetings from the AAPI Center! As we approach the end of the semester, we wish you the best with final exams, grading, and travels through the holidays. Save the date for a pregame celebration with Men's Basketball AAPI Night in January and updates on our learning communities, including a call to participate in our spring 2025 learning community for staff and leadership. 

San Francisco Men's Basketball AAPI Night
Pregame Celebration with the AAPI Center

Saturday, Jan. 25  |  5–6:45 p.m.  |  Kalmanovitz Hall Atrium

Men's basketball is hosting AAPI Night on Saturday, Jan. 25, vs. the San Diego Toreros. You are cordially invited to a pre-game celebration hosted by the AAPI Center! All AAPI students, faculty, staff, and alumni are welcome.

Attention all AAPI students! The AAPI Center wants to understand your experience at USF. You should have received a confidential survey via email asking you various questions about your background, feelings of connection, and use of student resources at USF. All students who complete the survey will receive a gift card. The survey should take 10-15 minutes to complete.

Questions about the survey? Contact Professor Christine Yeh at cjyeh@usfca.edu.

Our leadership fellows concluded and celebrated their first semester in our AAPI Leadership course (CDS 390), sharing reflections on the roles of AAPI leaders in our current political moment. Students spoke about the importance of intergenerational relationship building, nurturing “thick” solidarities, cross-movement organizing, and collective care. We’re looking forward to continuing our work with our leadership fellows in the spring!

A big thanks to our FLC faculty participants for joining us through the semester: Saera Khan, Noopur Agarwal, Nour Al-muhtasib, Fay Chen, Aline Hitti, Evelyn Ho, Deena Lin, Jerome Stewart, and Joyce Yang. We appreciate your insightful contributions and openness to helping explore the breadth of diversity in "APIMEDA"!

Thanks to the Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) for their support!

Throughout the semester, we engaged in conversations about strategies to enhance our institutional capacity to serve Pacific Islander students at USF and invited Patsy Tito (Samoan Community Development Center) to share thoughts on strengthening community relationships on- and off-campus. We look forward to continuing our conversations in January and launching a new Staff and Leadership Learning Community (see below for details)!

Staff and Leadership Learning Communities (SLLCs) are semester-long programs of training, dialogue, and reflection for staff and administrative leadership to enhance practices in supporting USF’s AAPI students.

Registration is open for our spring 2025 SLLC, Practices of Care for Multiracial AAPI Students, commencing in February. Facilitated by Matilda Tavares MA ’18, EdD ’24, we will explore the experience of AAPI and multiracial identities in higher education. Together, we will co-create practices that nurture strengths-centered identity development and center the voices and experiences of our students who identify as both AAPI and multiracial. Through active collaboration, we will focus on uplifting students' experiences, addressing their needs, and empowering their growth.

Learn more and register »

Piece by Maryam Yousif

Imagined Vessels: Ceramics by Paz G, Liz Hernández, Cathy Lu, Maria Porges, and Maryam Yousif

On exhibition from December 2024 – February 2025

Breaking from tradition, Imagined Vessels explores the work of five contemporary artists as they mold stories of personal and cultural identity into ceramic form. Presented by USF’s MA in Museum Studies Curatorial Practicum class, led by Professor Paula Birnbaum.

Learn more about the new exhibition »

Celebrate the Year of the Snake with the Center for Asia Pacific Studies

Feb. 4, 2025  |  11:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m.  |  Privett Plaza

Join the Center for Asia Pacific Studies and other Asia-focused programs and units on campus as we ring in the Year of the Snake! Meet us at Privett Plaza for music, prizes, food, and a traditional lion dance performance by Leung’s White Crane Association. Free and open to all!

This month, AANAPISI project directors from across Northern California convened for a regional meeting hosted by City College of San Francisco. Hawaiian Ensemble also celebrated its 18th annual Lū`au, Ua Ola Loko i Ke Aloha.

Hawaiian Ensemble's 18th annual Lū`au, Ua Ola Loko i Ke Aloha (November 2024)

AANAPISI Northern California Regional Meeting at CCSF (November 2024)

We invite you to share about recent successes, campus events for promotion, and spotlights on students, faculty, and staff! Contact AAPIcenter@usfca.edu.

The Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Center at the University of San Francisco is funded by a grant from the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI) Program of the U.S. Department of Education.