Asian-Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Student Center

Mission

The mission of the APIDA Student Center is to facilitate an environment for Asian Pacific-Islander Desi American identifying students that provides academic, professional, and social opportunities that critically engage their identity and build communities of support at UW-Madison.

History

In 2017, Riley Tsang and Shannon Thao began actively lobbying for an APIDA Student Center. A committee created and led by Tsang and Thao, researched centers at other Big Ten schools and developed a proposal to present in collaboration and in solidarity with the student activists working to establish the Latinx Cultural Center. They used the momentum of each other’s projects to build on their own individual efforts forming a student coalition. When thinking about these two spaces, the students active in launching the centers thought it important to note that these new centers be thought of as startup spaces, not finished products, as there are still many ideas for growth. The student activists who worked to establish the APIDA Student Center also served as the first student interns of the center and were titled community organizers. We now have a full-time staff program coordinator and an undergraduate programming intern.

Take a virtual tour of our current space and please consider financially supporting the APIDA Student Center.

Get Involved

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APIDA Heritage Month Planning Committee

Serving on the Heritage Month Planning Committee, members will be able to:

Event Plan & Execute
- Critically think to strategically develop and enhance skills in order to plan, execute, and facilitate small- and large-scale programming

Collaborate & Network
- Work collaboratively with campus partners, student organizations, and the greater Madison community to put on heritage month programming and initiatives

Self-Reflect & Team Build
- Assess one’s own strengths and areas for growth while building community amongst peers on the planning committee

Problem Solve
- Find solutions to difficult or complex situations

Develop Leadership
- Expand one’s own capacity to be effective in leadership roles and processes via communication, decision making, critical/strategic thinking
- Strengthen leadership, event planning, and organizational skills

Identify intersectionalities
- Within your racial identity and other identity markers (e.g. class, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, nationality, disability, etc.)