23rd Annual Symposium: Conservation Conversations

Our 23rd annual ENVX Symposium, an opportunity for you to interact with diverse others on contemporary biodiversity conservation, will be held online October 20-22, 2020.

It follows our preparatory ENVS summer 2020 reading group on conservation, which ran for 11 weeks and included dozens of participants ranging from prospective ENVS students to longtime Lewis & Clark alumni.

See the fall schedule for Conservation Conversations, including these sessions:

• Conservation and coronavirus | race | cities | the Anthropocene: These four sessions build on popular related reading topics from the summer. We will distribute key readings in advance, or you can just show up and learn about these topics and how they relate to biodiversity conservation.
• Conservation around the world: In collaboration with Lewis & Clark’s Overseas and Off-Campus Programs office, you will hear about real-world cases in biodiversity conservation around the world via online interviews with key Overseas Program experts, available for you to peruse in advance and summarized during the sessions.
• Conservation conversations: As this year’s Symposium theme suggests, we continue our recent tradition integrating engagement opportunities into ENVX Symposium. This year, we feature an exciting collaboration with Narrative 4, a global organization devoted to conversation across difference via story exchange. These sessions will involve facilitated live conservation story exchanges between members of the Lewis & Clark community, preregistered participants, and Narrative 4 participants spanning the world!
• Conservation lunch discussions: To connect on-campus and remote members of the Lewis & Clark community, we plan to host far-ranging lunchtime online discussions about conservation…and will provide boxed lunches to on-campus students to support their participation.
• Opening and closing reception: Stay tuned for details on how we plan to launch and conclude this exciting series of interactive online events.

Symposium 2020 will be different from previous years given coronavirus restrictions, but we are excited that the events introduced above cross even bigger boundaries, promote even greater inclusivity, and ultimately enhance learning in our Lewis & Clark community and beyond—all important features of ENVX Academy, a new ENVS Program initiative offering online enhancements to our curriculum and co-curriculum, available to prospective, current, and former Lewis & Clark students.