Sustainable Visions and Values Conference

Placing Local Action into Global Context

The International Beliefs and Values Institute and Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement will host an international conference April 7 – 10, 2011.

The International Beliefs and Values Institute (www.jmu.edu/ibavi) and Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement (www.mbc.edu/spencercenter) are pleased to announce an international conference – Sustainable Visions and Values: Placing Local Action into Global Context – to be held on the beautiful campus of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia (U.S.A.), April 7 – 10, 2011.

Through presentations and work group deliberations, participants will 1) identify exemplars at the level of scholarship, teaching, and service across six value-based themes: conflict resolution, human and minority rights, sustainability, equal treatment and access, global education, and religious and cultural understanding; 2) develop recommendations in each of these areas that are relevant to scholars, educators, practitioners, policy makers, and the public at large; and, 3) facilitate collaboration across these six areas of emphasis among individuals, groups, and organizations that are working locally in the Shenandoah Valley, nationally, and around the globe.

Participants receive a year of free membership in the International Beliefs and Values Institute. In addition to a range of other benefits (see www.ibavi.org), members receive issues of the IBAVI’s international and interdisciplinary journal from Springer Publishing – Beliefs and Values: Understanding the Global Implications of Human Nature. Conference proceedings, including selected papers, also will be published in Beliefs and Values.

Ultimately, among other conference outcomes, SVV participants will come to better “understand beliefs and values and their impact on the decisions people make because they underpin how we see the world and each other,” says Dr. Christine Loh, Founder and Chief Executive Office of Civic Exchange in Hong Kong, and member of the IBAVI’s Advisory Board (www.ibavi.org/content/christine-loh-obe). As Dr. Jo Beall, Professor of Development Studies at the London School of Economics, and another IBAVI Advisory Board member (www.ibavi.org/content/jo-beall-phd) concludes, “In a world characterized by asymmetries of wealth and power, international cooperation will be better achieved if we can understand and respect each other’s beliefs in the process of achieving shared values.”