It’s not often that administrators collaborate with students to organize a statewide event. But that’s exactly what Alexis Irish, Intercultural Life Program Specialist, and Naomi Taylor, Director of Intercultural Life, have been doing. The two are working in conjunction with the students they oversee on the Student Intercultural Life Committee (SILC) to organize the second annual SPA-hosted Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC). Irish and Taylor have primarily been focused on organizing the logistics of the conference – the date, time and location – while SILC members spent meetings determining theme, design elements, promotion to students at SPA and other local schools, registration and budget constraints.

Last year’s conference was themed around how to engage in conversation and connection across differences. SILC members decided on this year’s theme over a span of about four meetings. This year’s theme, The ABCs of Authenticity: Accessing Self, Breaking Barriers, and Creating Community, emerged from brainstorming issues that they think need to be addressed in the SPA community. The group came up with four overarching themes – code-switching, the act of changing the dialect one uses based on the social context, intersectionality, the idea of different elements of one’s identity collectively shaping their experience, tokenism, the practice of making only a performative effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, and stereotypes, which are generalized beliefs about a group of people – which they decided all fell under the umbrella of the struggle to find personal authenticity.

Senior Serene Kalugdan is one of the SILC leaders, and though organizing a conference was initially daunting, she’s taken it in stride. “This is my first year planning SDLC, and I am very excited about it. I have always taken a great interest in learning about the various ways to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in school and our daily lives,” she said.

Kalugdan, who takes advanced art classes at SPA and has exhibited her work in the Drake Gallery, also designed the poster for the event.

“I am very proud of the poster’s outcome. It took me a lot of time and persistence to draft and design the poster, but I think that it paid off in the end.”

Kalugdan aimed to emulate the conference’s themes, and chose to have alphabet building blocks being the poster’s focus to emphasize the dual ease and complexity of trying to find authenticity in yourself. She believes that authenticity means staying true to her young self, which requires going back to basics – the ABCs.

While Kalugdan and other SILC members focus on the student-facing side of the conference, Irish is hammering out other details and trying to support SILC members in their tasks. “I am currently working on reaching out to faculty to help the students find a keynote speaker for the conference. We have a project management document with the list of things we need to complete and each SILC member has signed up for whatever projects interest them,” Irish said.

When school resumes after winter break, SILC members will meet to determine the specifics of the event, time blocking the day and organizing catering.

Irish is impressed by how much of the work SILC members have taken into their own hands. “It’s been cool to watch the students collaborate with each other and see how all of their ideas come together….they’re so dedicated to DEIB work. They work together really well and have taken the responsibility of creating a conference in stride.”

The 2025 conference will be held in February at the Wilder Recreation Center in Saint Paul. Signups will be announced at a later date.

A new featured photo was added 12/12.