What We Do

The Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment (CAPISE) seeks to advance and support the holistic (academic, cultural, personal) needs of Asian and Pacific Islander students at San Jose State University through student empowerment and campus advocacy.

CAPISE will be a space and place where Asian and Pacific Islander students can build cross-cultural community with each other (along with faculty and staff), be affirmed and validated in their individual cultural and other intersecting identities, and grow in community in order to persist, challenge the status quo, and achieve personal success at San Jose State University and beyond.

Mission

The Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment exists to provide community-building and empowerment opportunities for Asian and Pacific Islander students at San Jose State University. Empowerment takes on many forms, as embodied in our 6 core values: 

• Belonging: When we feel we belong, that there is a place for each one of us and we are appreciated for who we are and what we bring, we are empowered.
• Community: When we can build a community together, where we appreciate and value each person’s identities, experiences, and skills and understand how we are stronger together, we are empowered.
• Culture: When we explore and embrace our cultures, both in appreciation of what our cultures have given us and in critique of how we can retain and grow within them, we are empowered.
• Growth: When we acknowledge that we will always be growing, that we cannot be still and will forever be changing and learning, we are empowered.
• Advocacy: When we learn to advocate for ourselves and for others, to speak our truths and ask for what we need, we are empowered.
• Social Justice: When we recognize the importance of social justice in our lives, that to support equity and liberation for all communities uplifts us and our own communities, we are empowered. 

With services, events, and student-led programs rooted in these values, we support students from recruitment all the way through graduation. 

CAPISE encourages Asian and Pacific Islander students to positively embrace and grow in all of their identities, experiences, and skills - from their cultural identities/experiences to their academic and self-advocacy skills - not only for their own personal success, but also for the advancement of their communities on and off campus.