The Midwest Climate Collaborative is hosting a Student Systems Conference to virtually bring together students, staff, and faculty from colleges and universities across the United States to discuss important problems students are facing regarding environmental issues at their respective campuses. The conference seeks to facilitate relationship building across campuses as well as collaborative work on action items that demonstrate collective support and solidarity for different policies, initiatives, or movements students are working on. The conference was founded after the two current conference chairs, Maddie Miller (University of Minnesota) (pictured left) and Natalie Tinsen (University of Wisconsin–Madison), (pictured on the right) met at the Midwest Regional Climate Summit. Maddie and Natalie worked then together to present a special session as part of the Midwest Climate Summit that directly focused on student needs and perspectives on sustainability. The conference held in 2021 inducted the Student Systems Conference as an annual event.
The 2022 conference will take place on March 4th from 12-3 pm CT and will consist of a panel discussion from different student organizations and then follow up with several breakout sessions that discuss the area of focus of each student group. The sessions will additionally work on one action item to address an issue across the attendees’ campuses to take tangible steps to achieve their goals. The conference is intended to be a welcoming and meaningful experience for all students to share their achievements, hardships, and experiences in advocating for sustainability and environmental justice at their campuses and in their communities. Sign up here.