DUE TO IMPENDING INCLEMENT WEATHER FROM HURRICANE HELENE, 2024 ROOTED IN THE MOUNTAINS SYMPOSIUM HAS BEEN CANCELLED.  

All paying participants will receive a refund. Please allow time for processing the refund.

 

 

 

The 14th Annual Rooted in the Mountains Symposium

Thursday and Friday, September 26 and 27, 2024.

Theme: Mountains Teach Us To Learn
Dodalv’i Gegehyohvsgo’i Igadehlogwasdi
ᏙᏓᎸᎢ  ᎨᎨᏲᎲᏍᎪᎢ  ᎢᎦᏕᎶᏆᏍᏗ

Location: Bardo Arts Center on the Main Campus of Western Carolina University. 

A rooftop reception will be held on the Apodoca Science Building Rooftop Terrace on Thursday evening for the first 100 to RSVP during the registraiton process. The North American Indian Women’s Association will serve traditional Cherokee and indigenous hors d'oeuvres on the Apodaca Science Building rooftop while Dr. Enrique Gomez, Dr. Jane Eastman, Dr. Thomas N. Belt, Professor Brett Riggs will provide a telescope to explore and share about Cherokee cosmology. 

Registration

PLEASE REGISTER NO LATER THAN 5:00 pm TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th
Regular Registration Fee: $159.00
WCU Faculty, Staff and Students Registration Fee: Free, but must to register to attend
Non-WCU Student Registration Fee: $50.00
Tribal Elders Fee: Free but must register to attend

REGISTER

  

Keynote Speaker: Kyle Whyte

Kyle Whyte is a faculty member at the University of Michigan where he is George Willis Pack Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, and Professor of Philosophy in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Kyle teaches in the SEAS environmental justice specialization. He is founding Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, Faculty co-Director of the Energy Equity Project, co-Principal Investigator of SEAS' Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters, Faculty Associate of Native American Studies, and Senior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

Kyle is currently a U.S. Science Envoy and serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, and the National Academies' Resilient America Roundtable. He has served as an author for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, including on the National Climate Assessment, and for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II. He is a former member of the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science in the U.S. Department of Interior and of two environmental justice work groups convened by past state governors of Michigan. He is President of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. 

  

Lodging

There is no available overnight lodging on campus. A limited number of rooms have been reserved at the Comfort Inn in Sylva for the symposium. Other lodging may be available in nearby Sylva or Dillsboro. For a listing, please visit mountainlovers.com.