Community Conversations

It started as a way to grieve … and honor a respected journalist in our community.It’s grown to be a project involving more disparate people and groups…

Fear of Muslims. Fear of refugees. Fear of immigrants – we’ve heard it all and then some on the news in recent months, with wildly differing ideas of how…

Jobs in the Northland don't come just from mining, industry or tourism; it turns out there’s good money generated – AND jobs – in the arts and in the…

Even after an entire semester in Jacki Buffington-Vollum's class on mental illness and crime, many students refuse to believe that anyone could commit…

Brittany Maynard gained the sympathies of a nation when the 29 year old woman with terminal brain cancer ended her life last fall with drugs prescribed by…

A recent article in The Atlantic titled “The Coddling of the American Mind” says “in the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly…

Public conversations about the idea of privilege are hard, and ironically, much of that is because of our proud heritage of "Minnesota Nice." But they're…

You hear a lot of conversations about "kill" and "no-kill" animal shelters these days. No one likes the idea of a "kill" shelter, but is it really that…

Since 9/11, extremist Muslims have been using their faith to justify jihad. Other Muslims have protested against what they say is a distortion of Islam.…

UMD’s 2nd Annual Creativity Conference was organized around the ideas of creativity across disciplines and cultures this year. But as our free-ranging…