Sustainability conference focuses on resilience this year

Event will be held virtually for second straight year

>> Students from Chico State will hold the 16th annual “This Way To Sustainability Conference” on Thursday and Friday, with this year’s theme being “Resilience from the Ground Up: Strengthening Diversity in Soil, Communities and Economies.”

The event will be held virtually for the second straight year due to COVID-19 restrictions, however Chico State President Gayle Hutchinson said the university has not seen much of an impact on attendee participation at conferences and workshops when going virtual.

Hutchinson said it was very promising to see 350 faculty attend this year’s Tipping Point Summit on Jan. 20.

“Every year we have faculty attend but the fact that the number of faculty that we were able to reach, and staff for that matter, because of the internet was really promising,” Hutchinson said. “So I think that we’re going to see more town hall type meetings and conferences where we can get more and more people to turn out to help our students and advance the mission of the university.”

On the This Way To Sustainability Conference 2021 Facebook page it states that the goal of the conference is to educate students, staff and faculty, and community members providing attendees an opportunity to network, discuss, and become more aware of pertinent environmental and social issues faced.

The event is hosted by the Chico Center for Regenerative Agriculture and will feature four keynote speakers including: farmer, activist, teacher and author of “Farming While Black” Leah Penniman; author, strategist and teacher Katharine Wilkinson; author and teacher at the University of Washington, Bothell Jennifer Atkinson; and professor at the UC Berkeley Haas Business School and President of the business Future 500’s Bill Shireman.

Thursday’s event will begin at 8:30 a.m. with opening remarks from Hutchinson, amongst others, and will conclude at 6 p.m. Friday. Wilkson will open the day at 9 a.m. before closing comments by Chico State Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Debra Larson.

A full schedule of events can be found at https://www.csuchico.edu/twts/program.shtml.

To regi s ter visit https:// whova.com/ web/ twts_ 202103/.