HxA’s network of Campus Communities is increasingly organizing regional conferences, and the staff at HxA and I could not be more delighted. August 14-15 will see our Mountain West convening, hosted and organized by the HxA Campus Community at Colorado State, and especially by co-chair Professor Matt Hickey (thank you, Matt!). This conference will bring together Campus Communities from the University of Wyoming, Colorado Mesa University, University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Denver. HxA members from states as far flung as Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska have also been invited (who knew that Kansas and Nebraska are now part of the Mountain West?). HxA staff—including Alice Dreger, Bethany Boucher, Wadii’ah Boughdir, and Rachael Ore—will also be converging at Fort Collins from various locales around the country. With the HxA Campus Communities leaders, three college presidents, and many of you, it should be quite a gathering of HxA’s Mountain West stars. 

I’ll open the conference with a new talk I’m writing on “University Reform in 2025: Inside, Outside and Upside Down.” I’ll be exploring some avenues in this summer’s hot debate about whether enduring changes to campus culture are best pursued from the inside by campus leaders or the outside by governmental actors. 

Indeed, as I was putting together a playlist for my plane ride West, I came across a beautiful John Denver song, with a line that struck me as apropos: “There’s a danger in forever looking outside…Can there never be heaven right here on Earth and peace inside?” (“The Wandering Soul”). Put into the terms of my talk, are universities best reformed by looking outside to governmental mandates, or by seeking “heaven and peace” by working from the inside—HxA’s preferred pathway, of course. So I’ll be listening to that John Denver song as I polish my talk on the flight West.

The highlight of the conference for me, though, will be the string of panels that follow my opening talk. There will be a Presidential Leadership Panel, featuring Amy Parsons, president of our host Colorado State, President Ed Seidel of the University of Wyoming, and long-time HxA member Chancellor Jeremy Haefner of the University of Denver.

Next up will be a panel on “Activism in the Academy,” featuring Ann Little from Colorado State, Alice Dreger from HxA, and (former HxA member engagement director) Martha McCaughey of the University of Wyoming. Last but definitely not least will be a panel on “AI in Education” featuring Kerry Peetz (DU), Jennifer Harmon (UW), Brandon Roberts (UW), and Nikhil Krishnaswamy (CSU). Whether or not you are a John Denver fan, it should be two full days of Rocky Mountain Highs. If you are in the area or want to be, join us!

For those of you who are making conference travel plans for the Fall, there are more convenings like this coming to universities near you soon. On September 26-27, the HxA Mid-Atlantic conference will be being hosted  in Bethesda by our Campus Community at University of Maryland - College Park. UMD co-chairs Rellie Rozin and Jacqueline Manger are in the lead but co-chairs from the following Campus Communities are also helping to bring this conference together: Johns Hopkins, UVA, Virginia Tech, UNC Charlotte, UNC Chapel Hill, App State, and NC State. Members from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, DC, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are of course welcome to attend. 

Also, from our “northern neighbors,” an HxCanada Conference is being organized for October 27 by Andy Sellwood, moderator of HxCanada. That will be held at the Simon Fraser University Vancouver campus. The conference is titled "Expanding Minds: The Power of Diverse Perspectives in Canadian Post-Secondary Education." Co-chairs from many of our other Campus Communities in Canada are involved, including Simon Fraser, UBC-Okanagan, University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier, McMaster, and McGill. More details can be found here on the website.