January 23, 2020
K-State Community Engagement Symposium announces national keynote speakers
Join the Center for Engagement and Community Development March 23-24 at the K-State Alumni Center for the 2020 K-State Community Engagement Symposium. This year's symposium theme is "Student Success and the Public Good." To help us think about this year's theme, we announce two nationally known speakers on the subject: Samory Pruitt and Nancy Thomas.
Pruitt, vice president for community affairs at the University of Alabama, will speak on Monday, March 23. At the University of Alabama, Pruitt's office serves as a bridge builder between the campus community and the external community. In addition to developing engagement strategies between the two, Pruitt works to address the changing cultural demographics taking place within the campus community. Pruitt is also the president of the board of directors of the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, a nonprofit national organization, composed of higher education member institutions both state-public and private institutions. The consortium's goal is to work collaboratively to build strong university-community partnerships anchored in the rigor of scholarship, and to build community capacity to address salient campus and community needs.
Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, will speak on Tuesday, March 24. The institute is an applied research center that studies higher education's role in American democracy and supports college and university student political learning and participation. The institute's signature initiative, the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement — NSLVE — examines student voting rates, patterns and conditions. Her work and scholarship interests include college student civic learning and participation in democracy, campus climates for political engagement, deliberative democracy, political equity and inclusion, and campus free speech and academic freedom.
We hope you will join us at the 2020 K-State Community Engagement Symposium. Register at k-state.edu/cecd/2020-engagement-symposium/conferenceregistration.html.