About

Symposium

noun

: a conference or meeting to discuss a particular subject
From the Greek symp-po-sium
: a drinking party or convivial discussion, especially as held in ancient Greece after a banquet

Why a Symposium?

The biennial international symposium at Pacific Lutheran University is one of the ways that the Wang Center supports the university’s goal of being an ever more globally focused university. PLU is nationally recognized for its international study away experiences that immerse students in other cultures and allow them to examine the complexity of global issues from other local, national and regional perspectives. However, not all PLU students are able to take advantage of these study away programs. Even with 50 percent of every PLU graduating class participating in a study away program for a month or more (the national average is under 3 percent) it means nearly 50 percent do not. For these students we need to bring the world to them and the campus, and the symposia are part of this effort.

Each year brings significant changes to the increasingly diverse and challenging world in which PLU graduates will live and work. Some of the challenges these changes bring are new, some are old and some are only now being recognized. Through presentations by professionals, authors, academics and hands-on practitioners, the symposium is designed to stimulate serious thinking on a single global challenge. If one is at all in doubt about this being a different world, consider that there are now 193 counties following a labyrinth of political systems and economic models, and a global population that now exceeds 7 billion.

Just as the symposium reaches out to challenge the assumptions and understanding of the PLU campus community, so too is it intended to reach out to the broader Puget Sound Community.

Previous symposia have been Migration: Towards an Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Understanding of Human Mobility, The Countenance of Hope: Towards an Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Understanding of Resilience,  Legacies of the Shoah: Understanding Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, China: Bridges for a New Century, Norway’s Pathways to Peace, Advances in Global Health by Non-Governmental Organizations, Understanding the World though Sports and Recreation and Our Thirsty Planet – A look at Earth’s most precious resource.