The Center for Great Plains Studies will host its annual conference focused on the future of the Great Plains March 31-April 2 at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
For five decades, the center has elevated the region as a place worthy of study, appreciation and conservation. For the center’s 50th anniversary, the annual Great Plains conference will celebrate the region’s past while looking to the next 50 years and beyond. The conference invites attendees to dream big about the future of people and land in the region.
“Great Plains Futures” is an interdisciplinary conference that will feature keynotes, panels, workshops and special events focused on four interconnected themes: environmental futures, reimagining the rural, Indigenous futures, and demographic change and migration. The conference is meant for the public, scholars, students, business owners, community leaders and lifelong learners.
Presentation information, a schedule and tickets are available here.
Featured keynotes:
- Danielle Boyer (Anishinaabe, Sault Tribe) is a youth robotics inventor who explores how culturally grounded technology can reshape education, empower communities and revitalize languages. Growing up in poverty and witnessing firsthand the barriers to technical education, Boyer created the SkoBots — wearable, personal language-learning robots to teach Anishinaabemowin. Built with affordability, sustainability and cultural relevance in mind, the robots cost less than $100 to produce and are distributed free to Indigenous youth. Boyer will share how she has reached more than one million students globally, disbursed tens of thousands of robots and built a movement rooted in community, grassroots innovation and intergenerational knowledge.
- J.S. Onésimo Sándoval will explore how Latino population growth is reshaping the social, economic and political landscape of the Great Plains. By examining historical settlement patterns, contemporary demographic shifts and projected trends, Sándoval will highlight how Latinidad has become an essential force driving regional transformation. Using demography as an analytic lens, the presentation connects statistical evidence with lived experience to reveal the far-reaching economic and political consequences of demographic change.
- Shaylyn Romney Garrett is the co-author of “The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again” and will speak as the opening keynote to the conference and as a speaker for the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Separate, free tickets are required for the Thompson Forum.
- Neil Linscheid, extension professor and extension state specialist in entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota, will speak about how to make communities work for the people who live there. Across the Midwest and beyond, communities are moving past simply collecting data about newcomers, residents and entrepreneurs. They are using that information to fundamentally redesign how their towns and cities function for the future. This talk examines what’s working, what’s not and what can be learned from communities getting it right.
- Carol Graham, conservation program manager with Manitoba Habitat Conservancy, will speak about how to build a conservation program that works on private land with an emphasis on collaboration and community. This community approach not only maintains ecological integrity and promotes biodiversity, but ensures ecosystem resilience and long-term ecological stability, beneficial for producers and private landowners.
Conference partners and supporters include: the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues, Department of Sociology, Office of Research and Innovation, School of Global Integrative Studies, Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, dean of engineering, School of Natural Resources, Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, Humanities Nebraska, Faculty Senate Convocations Committee and Editor World. The conference is presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada in Minneapolis.
