Theme: The Great Expression: Unearthing our roots and owning our truths

Unity comes with education, grace and understanding of one another. Our theme “The Great Expression: Unearthing our roots and owning our truths” is to unify the black community by teaching our true history about black people and to acknowledge and celebrate the diaspora so that we can come together as one. To overcome our stereotypes and prejudices against each other in our community we must learn to love and understand each other’s differences. That is why our theme focuses on three main points: Self love/appreciation, African/slave history, and Tributes to the diaspora.

Big 12 Council History
The Big 12 Council on Black Student Government is a regional Black Student Governing Body which consists of the Black Student Governments from institutions in the Big 12 Conference. This body of student leaders assembles each academic year to continue to promote Black culture, leadership, positive self-efficacy, political power and awareness, and goodwill of the student body and Black community on the campus of each member institution. The first conference, in 1978, was hosted by the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. This year, Iowa State University is the proud host of the 47th annual conference in Ames, IA. Iowa State last hosted the conference back in 2014.

Black Student Government History
The council was created in 1977 when Black students from all the schools in the Big Eight Conference came together in recognition that they were suffering from similar problems at their respective institutions. The next year, the University of Missouri students formally created the Big Eight Council and Conference on Black Student Government. In 1997, the Big Eight Conference was expanded to include four Texas institutions forming the new Big 12 Conference. The Big Eight Council on Black Student Government officially changed their name to the Big 12 Council on Black Student Government and included the four Texas schools into the structure of the organization. Each year, an institute member of the Big XII Council on Black Student Government hosts the Annual Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government.

Statement from Chairs
Greetings,

Welcome to Iowa State University! On behalf of the entire planning committee and us chairs, we are so excited to be hosting the 47th annual Big 12 Conference on Black Student Government. We hope that during your time here at our conference you will have an enriching experience from those around you and also from the activities we have planned for you. Your conference experience is complete with intriguing workshops, respectable keynote speakers, and quality entertainment, all while getting to be in the presence of hundreds of young, black scholars from some of
the best universities in the nation. The theme for this year is, “The Great Expression: Unearthing our roots and owning our truths.” We challenge all of you to think about what that means to each of you and how you can take the knowledge you acquire here back to your campuses in order to implement tangible change. Our conference focuses on the inner work of challenging ourselves and our mindsets so that we can be equipped to face the hardships in the real world as black scholars. How can we educate our self on black history and slavery? How can we learn self appreciation as black people? How can we unite as a community by learning and understanding the whole black diaspora? How can you transform your community at your university? We are eagerly anticipating meeting you all and hope you will have the best time during your stay here at Iowa State.

Best Regards,
Jaden Reed and Kierra Jack, Chairs