#1014: Student Agency in Communities of Practice: Organizing a Student-Led Undergraduate Computing Conference

We examine student agency within communities of practice through a case study of a student-led undergraduate computing conference that we organized. Drawing on Wenger (1999) and Klemenčič (2015), we analyze how designing a conference creates new forms of legitimate peripheral participation while shifting organizers toward core community members. Over nine months, we facilitated 27 accepted projects, with 13 final presentations and ~100 attendees. We analyze participation patterns, learning outcomes, and tensions between agency and institutional constraints. To address our dual role as organizers and researchers, we ground our analysis in established theory and report descriptive outcomes alongside reflective accounts, illuminating the scope and limits of student agency in shaping their own learning communities. Our work shows that agency can be exercised not only through participation but through infrastructuring, with students building the spaces where learning happens.