City College’s Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society is hosting a conference Friday, April 15, to raise awareness about the world’s conflicts and will feature prominent speakers such as Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson and Mayor Helene Schneider.
The free conference titled, “Shaping the 21st Century,” will take start 10:00 a.m. Friday, April 15, in the Administration Building Room 211. The event will be broken up into three different panels, which will go in-depth about the topics the conference is focusing on. The panels will be on War and Civilization, Female Leadership and Social (Dis) Trust.
“People will be learning about the past, learning about the present situation and thinking about how they could make a difference in the future,” said Mark Sanders, adviser for the society.
This will be the first time the society will host a conference, and they are hoping to make it a yearly event depending on the outcome. They are expecting over 100 attendees.
“Usually PTK leaders do an event each, but we wanted to do something big so we decided if we all work together we could do one huge event,” said Vasu Patel, member of the leadership board.
The event will begin with the War and Civilization panel. Joe White, director of 2020 A Year Without War, and Sanders will speak about the past and future of warfare and conflict.
“Being a history instructor, I’m going to be giving a historical perspective on where our various societies, cultures and civilizations originated and the shadow of conflict that’s been following us since the beginning of civilization,” said Sanders.
The Female Leadership portion of the conference will focus on challenges in women’s leadership roles. Shneider, Jackson, and Chiani Dri, president of the Black Students Union, will speak on the panel.
“Hannah-Beth Jackson attending and speaking at the conference will really highlight the purpose of the conference, especially in women and leadership roles,” said Sanders. A short documentary filmed by student Ida Dahlgren will be shown prior to the panel. The film takes a look at students and women in leadership positions.
In the Social (Dis) Trust panel, speakers include Attorney Donna Lewis and Chief Investigator Dave Sanders. The discussion will focus on our country’s absence of social trust and it’s impact.
“The goal by the end of that panel is to take away the ‘dis’ from it and just have the social trust. The social trust with our government, and with our law enforcement,” said Sebastian Rothstein, society leadership board member.
The event will also include information tables from local organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, Making Strides of Santa Barbara and United Day of Caring.
“It’s open to everyone, we encourage everyone,” said Rothstein. “Not only students, but everyone who really wants to learn, just come.”
Attendees are welcome to come and go throughout the day. Breakfast, lunch and light snacks will be served.
“Come for the food and stay for the ideas!” Rothstein said. “There are so many valuable topics being discussed.”
