Africa Awareness is a student driven initiative fully established in 2002 at UBC. The main focus of Africa Awareness is to encourage a critical dialogue through scholastic discourses that would lead to the inclusivity of the African Studies in the academic institution. Africa Awareness comprises of a board and an executive team that together organize an annual Conference/Symposium.

• CORE VALUES
• STATEMENT OF THE PROJECT
• AIM / OBJECTIVE
• PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT
• BENEFITS TO STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY
• EVALUATION PROCESS
• CONCLUSION

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CORE VALUES

1. ACADEMIC VALUES/ACHIEVEMENT
We believe we contribute to the world-class status of education at UBC by contributing significant scholarship to the academic arena that would otherwise be absent from the learning community. We support each other in accomplishing our goals and dreams by helping to bring out the best in each other. We aspire to the highest level of excellence by providing opportunities for student growth and leadership.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY 
We take responsibility for our decisions at the individual & organization level. We keep our promises to students, staff, volunteers and employees.

3. ATTITUDE 
We believe that remaining positive and looking ahead are essential to achieving goals. We believe that taking calculated risks encourages growth and new discovery. We push ourselves to the limit, questioning boundaries and envisioning new places of possibility.

4. COMMUNITY / TEAMWORK
We support working as a team with mutual recognition and a common mission. We value the input and contribution the community has in improving the academic structure at our university. We build key relationships by supporting our community.

5. FUNDRAISING
We are committed to raising funds for organizations in Africa that would improve the educational status of children on the continent.

STATEMENT OF THE PROJECT

National Symposium: To create and host a seven-day national symposium of critical discussion and cultural celebration of Africa Awareness in higher education at UBC that will bring together students, academics, and activists.

Student Engagement/Leadership: The goal of this conference is to foster student engagement in creating an environment that empowers universities and communities to move beyond racialized stereotypes and colonialized perspectives in response to the diverse and complex cultural realities of the continent of Africa. One way of accomplishing this goal is to create a legacy of awareness about Africa within the UBC community. Lack of Africa representation on campus acts as a way to marginalize and maintain the erasure of Africa history and the struggle and accomplishments of African students, staff, and faculty at UBC. TREK 2000, a key paper in framing the future of UBC, seemed reluctant to embrace African culture and contribution to higher learning. We believe this student-initiated project is a good first step in enriching the goals of UBC’s learning community by improving these important global learning and community goals.

AIM / OBJECTIVE

This project will provide the UBC community at large with a different lens in which to critically engage in thinking about the continent’s contribution to higher learning. It will address the intersections of colonial and post-colonial Africa in meaningful and action-orientated ways with particular emphasis placed on discussions that explore the conference theme in relations to intersections of African history and current events with race, gender, language, class, sexuality, faith/religion and slavery. This project will offer a week long series of lectures, round-table discussions, cultural activities and exhibitions to create awareness of the rich diversity and cultural value of the continent of Africa.

The plan for this conference comes from student-identified needs for developing leadership and offering African knowledge that allows for student discussion and learning as being an integral part of academic and institutional change. Students at UBC understand the diversity of a pluralistic and global world and want more opportunity to learn and dialogue about Africa in roundtables and talks that creates understanding and collective approaches to an inclusive understanding of our global learning environment.

These concerns have been raised with members of the UBC community, faculty and staff. Conference planning will continue to be a collaborative effort among faculty, staff and students. This conference will build on the success of the last two years of Africa Awareness at UBC.

PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

Reframing Africa. Often the image of Africa perpetrated in the media, is one of war, strife, poverty, genocide, drought, famine, sickness and under-development. There have been significant gains made in advancing a more pluralistic and complex notion of Africa, however, what still exists are stereotypes of African people and a form of colonial ‘othering’ that positions Africa as an exotic and inferior nation. African students on campus still experience struggles around identity development and isolation as a result of discrimination and harassment based on their ethnic origin. None of these issues can be adequately addressed within a framework of inferiority or seeing Africa as a continent of ‘problems’. This conference’s goal is to address the negative stereotypes of Africa by reframing it within a notion of the need for a more global and enriched learning environment. The conference will explore problems associated within the politics of development and underdevelopment and how universities and communities can move the knowledge and richness of African culture into a central place of critical learning and appreciation within the wider UBC community.

This conference meets Trek 2000 and the 2010 Green Paper in a variety of ways.

Learning: It will strengthen undergraduate and graduate curricula and learning opportunities in a number of ways that cross discipline, faculties and existing academic structures. Currently there are a very limited number of African courses offered at UBC. This project will bring together students and faculty in a substantial way to begin the legacy of awareness about Africa at UBC. This project will begin the dialogue as a way to sustain action and pedagogy across the various disciplines and learning environment at UBC. Graduate and undergraduate students from Africa will present their perspectives on Africa as well as well know African speakers from the national and international community. The depth of knowledge shared will cross multiple disciplines from the arts, social sciences and humanities, as well as science. Graduate and undergraduate students will have the unique opportunity to dialogue with visiting scholars as well as amongst themselves about the issues and cultural awareness of Africa. This project directly supports student wished to engage in diverse areas of academic inquiry about Africa across disciplines. Identified conference themes will allow students and faculty to focus on ways that African knowledge can be positioned centrally within higher learning through a celebrated and integrated global view of knowledge production. It will stimulate curricula renewal and enhancement and offer faculty ways to incorporate African knowledge into their teaching. This learning once implemented into the classroom, will create a legacy of rich knowledge that will benefit students for generations to come. Fostering positive attitudes towards diversity directly benefits the larger community by building a sense of belonging and inclusivity across differences. This enhancement of teaching and learning has the potential to benefit a significantly large number of students across disciplines.

Student Leadership: The theme of student leadership and growth will help strengthen the skills of student leaders and build connections with others across and within areas of racial diversity and difference. This conference will address demonstrated ways in which students can move beyond talk about race and ethnicity to actions that affects change on campus and in their communities.

Community: Trek 2000 emphasizes the importance of community building. This conference will attract student thinkers, community activist, and international and national African scholars. The conference will foster an integrative learning community and community coalition building in its community to presenting an Africa of hope and rich cultural knowledge and diversity. This conference and the need to include Africa in the diverse learning environments at UBC will speak to a broader population than those interested in Critical Race Studies and African Awareness. This forum promises a breadth of sharing and dialogue across disciplines through scholarly presentations, cultural activities and student-centered dialogue and learning.

BENEFITS TO STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY

Two of the factors that determine students’ university success are involvement with campus activities and interaction with other students, staff and faculty in and out of the classroom (Astin, UCLA). This conference provides an ideal opportunity to enhance student success by fostering student leadership and involvement in the conference development, planning and delivery. These are skills that will be easily transferable to other leadership opportunities on campus as they move along career paths. Similarly, student success will be positively affected by seeing the results of their work in facilitating and dialoguing with national speakers, attending sessions and enhancing their academic and critical thinking skills at the conference.

All stages of the proposal involved working and networking among, students, staff and faculty from across the campus community as well as within an international community of African studies and intellectual work. This will give students the chance to meet, know, and learn from other members of the international community and the external communities that they might not otherwise have contact. All leaders have mentors. It is our hope that this conference process will help provide opportunities for African community leaders and future leaders to work collaborative and learn from each other.

Students will have the opportunity for a direct experience of learning from African speakers and performers, moviemakers and artists. As a result of this, students will have the thirst to investigate the lack of African knowledge at UBC. This program will also allow students to experience the diversity and lushness of the continent through dialogue, performances and celebration of African life.

EVALUATION PROCESS

This symposium builds on the success of two years of Africa Awareness events at UBC. This conference will build on the success of this project and allow for a more national scope. Feedback from university faculty and students regarding the last two years of events has encouraged a continued legacy of Africa awareness at UBC. We are working closely with university staff to improve and develop a conference that celebrates, challenges, and brings together the diversity of thinking on our campus.

The symposium organizing committee will regularly perform self-evaluations to ensure that we are meeting our goals in a timely and fiscally sound manner. This committee will consult with a number of students, student leaders, and university and community leaders in academia (Critical Race and Africa Studies), as well as research and community organizations to ensure that we are representative of the communities whose cultures we are trying to address.

The speaker selection committee will consult with community and university leaders to evaluate proposed speakers to ensure a well-rounded program that address the themes of the conference.

This process of self-evaluation, listening to both local and national perspectives, and reflecting on the evaluation process of other similar conferences will help us successfully meet the stated goals.

CONCLUSION

The proposed symposium has the potential to benefit a large number of students. Students on the organizing committee and graduate student presenters will benefit directly from the conference process. They will have increased access to mentors in their fields and will gain valuable insight in both academic and leadership arenas. The working and learning environment of today and tomorrow is increasingly asking students for a more global understanding of identity and trans-culturation. Increasingly, issues of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender and difference are being integrated into our global community. Students with confidence, knowledge and skills, not only in these areas, but also in understanding the intersection of history and colonization will be well posed to become well-rounded citizens, leaders and academics.

Students will benefit in the classroom when curricula, pedagogy, and teaching style integrate issues of diversity beyond the current notion of Africa as an under-developed group of nations. Faculty who attend this conference will learn stimulating ways to incorporate curricular renewal and intersections of race and oppression into the classroom. Students will also benefit from having their student service professionals better equipped to understand and meet the needs of a diverse student body.

This project clearly meets the needs and objectives of TREK 2000, the Academic Plan and the Green Paper, 2010 goals. This proposed conference would enhance UBC’s public recognition as being on the forefront of these emerging issues. It has the potential to attract scholars, students, staff and faculty, to UBC as their place of study or employment. In addition to enhancing a positive and integrative learning environment for all students, UBC will play an important role in building national coalitions. UBC will be seen to be a leader in integrating scholarship with practice.