UNITED Conference Sept. 23-25

Three keynote speakers and a Native American youth photography exhibit will highlight the second annual Uniting Neighbors in the Experience of Diversity (UNITED) Conference. Events are scheduled Sunday, Sept. 23 through Tuesday, Sept. 25, in the Great Lakes rooms in the University Center. All are open to the public free of charge.

Arn Chorn-Pond, who as a child survived Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime by playing revolutionary songs on the flute, will give one of the keynote presentations. He is an internationally recognized human rights leader and speaker. Chorn-Pond received the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Anne Frank Memorial Award and the Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize. He also is the subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Flute Player.

Other speakers include José Goméz, a Harvard Law School graduate and law professor at the Evergreen State College in Washington, and poet Carmen Tafolla, who has published five poetry volumes and draws on her ancestors for inspiration. Eager Artists, a South African drama troupe originally scheduled to perform at UNITED, had to cancel its appearance because of visa issues.

Photographs taken by Native American youth for an NMU initiative titled “Writing with Light: Waaseyaasibi’ge Project” will be on display in the Whitman commons area throughout the conference.

The conference will also include presentations and panel discussions by NMU faculty and students, along with representatives from other U.P. colleges and universities. A complete schedule of events will be posted Monday, Sept. 19, following Friday's deadline for student presentation submissions. For more information, visit UNITED.