Unbeknownst to many, Washburn hosts an entirety of 123 registered student organizations on campus. One is the Washburn University Black Student Union who, last week, took their second annual trip to the Big 12 Conference of the Black Student Government.

Porchia Brown, president of the black student union, said the trip is one she will always enjoy.

“The academic and organizational workshops always are a help,” said Brown.

A good example, according to Brown, would be how Washburn’s Black Student Union is currently hoping to try and start some type of movement on the Washburn campus to get more students involved

The conference was held at the University of Oklahoma and brought all organizations amongst the big twelve schools. MIAA schools also attended.

“We basically just attended workshops that were built to help better ourselves academically as students and also to help our organization as a whole,” said Brown, “It was a motivational conference with the main purpose of rejuvenating our organization.”

Originally the conference was founded in 1977 when black students from the Big Eight Conference schools met to discuss issues and organizational problems at their schools. The years following were handled in a similar fashion, thus the annual conference is hosted by an institute member of the Big 12 Council.

For example, next year, the conference will be hosted by K-State University in Manhattan, Kan.

This year, Brown says that the conference’s main theme was “reawakening black excellence,” which allowed the conference’s attending organizations to think about their thoughts, actions and appearance as a whole.

Now, back at Washburn University, Brown speaks on behalf of the black student union when she says that they’re ready to start looking into events and planning other activities this upcoming year.

“We’re currently getting ready for our annual aids awareness week,” said Brown. “But we’re also steadily discussing and planning our other events, both hopeful and planned, for the rest of this year and the upcoming semester.”