Annual Research Conference: Call to Present

Toward Better Lives: An Exploration of Power, Purpose & the Common Good
April 22 and 23, 2020

This year’s Annual Research Conference at Inver Hills Community College takes place Wednesday, April 22, and Thursday, April 23, 2020, on the college’s main campus in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. The two-day event is held each spring for students, faculty and staff to share their scholarly and creative work via an oral presentation or poster presentation.

Drawing between 700–800 participants, mostly students, the two-day conference hosts two keynote speakers, one per morning, and provides free pizza at lunch each day for participants who signed up for it. Dozens of short presentations and poster displays by students are featured both days.

The theme for this year’s conference is Toward Better Lives: An Exploration of Power, Purpose & the Common Good. Shane Stroup, PhD, philosophy faculty, serves as chair of the Annual Research Conference 2020 Committee. Shane invites all members of the campus community to SUBMIT THEIR PRESENTATION PROPOSALS by Friday, March 20, 2020, and show their support for academic expression at Inver Hills by participating in conference activities.

Shane reported that this year’s theme examines broad concepts that allow for research in just about every field of study imaginable.

“So feel free to define ‘better lives’ diversely,” he told presenters, noting that April 22 is Earth Day. “We are going to try to organize all ‘environmental’ research on Wednesday when possible; though naturally if need be that research can be presented on Thursday as well.”

SUBMIT A PRESENTATION PROPOSAL

DEADLINE: FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2020

Shane added that the Black Box Theatre in the Fine Arts building will be turned into an Earth Day celebration/presentation room, which will highlight Inver Hills becoming the first educational institution in Minnesota and the 83rd in the United States to be certified as an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program.

“Randi Goettl, director of accessibility resources and The Bee’s Knees Committee lead, is leading this presentation,” Shane said. “Randi also secured Wednesday’s keynote speaker, Dr. Jessica Hellmann, director of the Institute on Environment at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Hellmann’s research examines adaptation and vulnerability of biological species to climate change.”

On Thursday, the Black Box Theatre will be transformed into a place for students to get together face to face and tell stories reflecting on what it means to live together. Shane called on faculty presenters to start thinking about ways they might incorporate their current courses into the question of “living well,” and how that might be presented at the conference—including posters and other modes of delivery. He reported that his Environmental Philosophy course will hold a round-table discussion about the meaning of “nature.”

Annual Research Conference 2019 Wednesday gallery

View more event photos on the Inver Flickr album:

Annual Research Conference 2019 WEDNESDAY

WHAT: Annual Research Conference 2020

WHEN: Wednesday, April 22, & Thursday, April 23, 2020

WHERE: Fine Arts Building

Inver Hills Community College
2500 80th Street East
Inver Grove Heights, MN 55076

SUBMIT A PRESENTATION PROPOSAL

More about Dr. Jessica Hellmann…¹

Wednesday’s keynote speaker

Jessica Hellmann is the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and the Ecolab Chair in Environmental Leadership. As director, she provides strategic leadership for the Institute, a mission-based organization working to help build a future where people and planet prosper together.

From the higher education sector, the institute pursues interdisciplinary research that moves the needle on sustainability and it builds and supports leaders—inside and outside the university—who put sustainability into practice. In its work, the institutes draws upon its 150 affiliates and some 40 staff members.

Hellmann also is the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Chair in Excellence in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in the College of Biological Sciences.