News Center

March 9, 2012 — Allegheny College will host an academic conference on sustainability March 30-31. The conference is open to the public, and registration is free.

Keynote speakers on Friday, March 30, will include four noted researchers in the field of sustainability: Irene J. Klaver, director of the Philosophy of Water Project and associate professor in philosophy at the University of North Texas; Devon G. Peña, professor of anthropology and Chicano studies at the University of Washington; Sylvia Hood Washington, research associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Paul B. Thompson,
W. K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University.

Undergraduate students from Allegheny College will present papers and panel discussions on themes related to sustainability on Saturday, March 31. The conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion among all participants, followed by a banquet.

“This event will give us an opportunity to investigate the complexities of sustainability in a world becoming ever more interconnected while riven by disagreement about our responsibilities to one another, to future generations, and to all that is not human,” said Associate Professor of Philosophy Eric Boynton, who is helping to organize the conference. “Sustainability is about the resilience of individuals, communities, societies, ecosystems, bioregions, food webs and the earth itself.”

For more information about the conference and to register online, visit www.allegheny.edu/sustainability2012.

The conference is part of the Year of Sustainable Communities at Allegheny College, a series of activities, workshops and events aimed at inspiring the campus and community to examine what makes a community sustainable in the richest sense of the word—that is, able to provide a good quality of life to those who live and work there and to be resilient in the face of challenges.

For more information on the Year of Sustainable Communities, including a schedule of events, visit www.allegheny.edu/events and click on the “Year of Sustainable Communities” tab.

The sustainable communities conference is partially funded by the Bywater Family Fund for Social Justice Programming and the William Beazell Memorial Fund at Allegheny.