On April 26, 19 students attended the 15th Annual Asian Footsteps Conference (AAFC), hosted this year at the Windsor School. They attended and led affinity groups and workshops.
The school provided the greatest number of student leaders among the 38 schools at the conference, with 12 Hotchkiss students leading 19% of all student workshops. These workshops included “Thriving Asian: Mental Wellness Explained,” led by Sia Reddy ’26 and Ethan Li-Kato ’27, to “Confucius to Plato: The Bridge Between Western and Asian Philosophies,” led by Katherine Lu ’28 and Khloe Kim ’28.
Jerry Fan ’27 and Alex Choi ’27 led a workshop called “Stories Through Stanzas: Poetry & Relating the Pan- Asian narrative.” Fan said, “It was nice to see people from other cultures connecting through interesting workshops about food and literature.”
Students, accompanied by Mr. Piere Yoo, co-director of pluralism and community, Ms. Nora Yasumura, and Dr. Lennox Debra, instructor in English, left campus at 5:30 a.m. and returned at 8:00 p.m.
The school has historically played a major role in the AAFC, with Mr. Yoo training affinity group leaders from all participating schools before the conference. Hotchkiss hosted the conference in 2019, when over 500 students attended. “I am so proud of our Pan Asian students for their positive energy, leadership, and spending a whole Sunday to lead and serve others,” Mr. Yoo said. “The students displayed our motto of ‘Guided by each other, let us seek better paths’ by helping and learning from others by leading affinity group sessions and workshop sessions.”
