Previous Conferences
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Ken Nickel, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Chair of the Ambrose Research Ethics Committee.
Academic Excellence Amid Democratic Decline: A Platonic Survival Story
Unknown by some and forgotten by others, Plato’s Republic, the Socratic dialogue celebrating the virtues in and of the ‘Ideal City’, was a ‘science fiction’ story written for the benefit of his Academy. This year’s plenary speaker, Dr. Ken Nickel, contends that a reconsideration of ‘virtue’ in the university can serve to alert its stewards and guardians of the tyrannies that threaten its own survival, and that it is time to write a twenty-first century ‘science fiction’ survival story of our own, one in which ‘excellence’ inspires us to avoid the very same fate that perennially imperils democracy.
Below is a list of previous conference programs and themes
- March 29, 2023
Climate Change and the Christian University - March 30, 2022
Adjacent Possibilities: Research That Makes Room for What's Possible - March 31, 2021
Faithful Science - March 27, 2019
Uncharted: Conversations in the Hinterlands - April 4, 2018
The World after Tomorrow - March 29, 2017
The Power of Story - April 4, 2016
Wisdom: Past, Present, and Future - March 30, 2015
Poverty: Causes, Impact, and Solutions - March 31, 2014
- March 16, 2013
- March 26, 2012
- March 28, 2011
- March 29, 2010