• Oct 18

  The Community of Food, Society, and Justice Conference

  Free and open to all students, faculty, staff, and the public (registration required)

  East Quadrangle – Keene Theater 8:00am – 5:30pm

  The ways that we meet the nutritional needs of our communities, while also protecting the planet, promoting healthy lives, and ensuring food justice are among the greatest challenges facing our Nation and the world today. Centuries of unsustainable agricultural practices and inequitable food distribution place our food systems in peril. How to address these challenges and feed a hungry population raise transformative issues for our communities and academics committed to sustainability and food justice throughout the world.

  The Community of Food, Society & Justice Conference will engage students, faculty, staff, farmers, and the community in rigorous dialogue around these challenges. The conference will be structured around a foundation of interdisciplinary scholarship that agrees that recognizing structural relations of power are necessary in order to confront race, class, and gender privileges on issues such as food justice.

  Our keynote speaker is investigative reporter, Tracie McMillan, traciemcmillan.com, author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table, and “The New Face of Hunger”.

  >> CONFERENCE SCHEDULE >>
  Friday, October 18:
  8:00 am Registration table in EQ Upper Atrium
  8:00 am Continental Breakfast EQ Private Dining Room

  8:45 am Welcome, Keene Theater
  Virginia Murphy, Faculty Director, Residential College East Quad Garden, University of Michigan

  9:00- 10:15 am Panel 1: Soil Resistance and Recovery: How Academic Institutions Learn from Farmers
  Panel Chair: Jeremy Moghtader, Manager, Campus Farm University of Michigan

  > Jennifer Blesh, PhD (Assistant Professor, Soil and Agroecosystems, University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability)
  > Tom Zilke (Co-Owner and Operator Zilke Vegetable Farm, and Zilke Farm Kitchen)
  > Akello Karamoko (Farmer, Plum Street Market for Keep Growing Detroit) (Invited)

  10:30-11:45am Panel 2: Growing Heritage: Reclaiming Indigenous Seeds
  Panel Chair: Lisa Young, Lecturer IV, Department of Anthropology
  > Shiloh Maples (Program Manager for Food Sovereignty & Wellness Initiatives, American Indian Health & Family Services, Detroit)
  > Susan Sekaqueptewa (Hopi Tribe agent for Federally-Recognized Tribes Extension Program, USDA)
  > Rowen White (Coordinator of Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance’s Indigenous Seed Keepers Network and Director and Founder, Sierra Seeds)

  11:45-12:30 pm Complimentary Lunch in East Quad (registration required to receive lunch). Buffet Luncheon prepared by University of Michigan Sustainable Food Program with Food Grown by the University of Michigan Campus Farm!

  12:30-1:15pm Student Posters & Research Session Book Sale & Signing

  1:15 -2:15 Keynote Speaker: Tracie McMillan, Keene Theater

  2:30 - 3:45pm Panel 3: Healthy Food Actionists: Lightning fast discussions about what’s working and why
  Panel Chair: Lilly Fink Shapiro, MPH; Program Manager, University of Michigan Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, University of Michigan
  > Janee Moore, Food Access Public Health Consultant, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
  > Markell Miller, Director of Community Food Programs at Food Gatherers
  > Laura Vollmer, Policy Analyst at University of California, Nutrition Policy Institute

  3:45 - 5:00pm Panel 4: Community Values: Supporting Local Producers
  Panel Chair: Alex Bryan, Manager, Sustainable Food Program, University of Michigan; Co-Owner, Food Field, Detroit, Michigan
  > Melvin Parson (Founder and Executive Director of We the People’s Growers Association, Ypsilanti, Michigan)
  > Invited: John Vandermeer, PhD (Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan)
  > Invited: Student associated with Maize and Blue Cupboard (on campus food pantry founded by students, now a funded university initiative)

  5:00 -5:30pm Closing Remarks
  Dilip Das, Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, University of Michigan

  5:00 - 5:30 pm Student Poster & Research Sessions
  Book sale & signing

  >> REGISTRATION is free and required for the conference at the link below.

See all events