Learn how to benefit from collaboration at university-community partnership conference

Kindergarten through 12-grade educators, community leaders, administrators, non-profit organizations, and college and university faculty are invited to attend Virginia Tech’s Building Strategic Partnerships: Challenges and Opportunities, the Second Annual University-Community Partnership Conference. The three-day event hosted by Virginia Tech’s Service-Learning Center will be held from Wednesday, to Friday, July 13-15, at the new Inn at Virginia Tech and Skeleton Conference Center, which opens July 10 on Virginia Tech's campus.

The university-community partnership conference will feature interactive workshops, case studies, and presentations that examine important issues and challenges facing cooperative endeavors between communities or community organizations and colleges or universities. By emphasizing strategic partnership goals based on mutual respect and shared risk, the conference’s learning sessions will promote positive social transformations.

Keynote speaker, Monica Appleby, former New Enterprises Fund (NEF) director for the Community Housing Partners Corporation and co-author of Mountain Sisters: from Convent to Community in Appalachia, will speak at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday. She will address the theme of building strategic partnerships from the perspective of her own lifetime experiences.

Armand Carrière, founding executive director of the Worcester UniverCity Partnership and former associate director for university partnerships at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will be the closing plenary speaker. He will address the topic of sustaining partnerships.

Online registration is available until June 30. The three-day event fee is $150 (covering lunch, conference break service on all days, sessions, materials, and the closing reception), and the one-day fee is $90. Organizations sending two or more people will receive a $25 discount. For more conference information, contact Michele James-Deramo at (540) 231-6947.

The event will be the first multi-day conference at the elegant Inn at Virginia Tech and Skeleton Conference Center, which features state-of-the-art technology for the comfort and convenience of guests. To make reservations, call (540) 231-8000 or toll-free, (877) 200-3360 and mention the conference.