University of Detroit Mercy hosts 17th annual Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit Conference

University of Detroit Mercy will host the 17th annual Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit conference Oct. 14-15 in the new Student Union on the McNichols Campus. The conference theme for this year is “Earth is our Mentor, Measure and Model.” 

The Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit group holds this conference each year to provide a platform for community members to network and highlight innovative solutions to environmental and social problems with a focus on metro Detroit and Michigan. The mission of this conference and Bioneers Detroit is to promote a sustainable community that fosters life-giving relationships, nurtures connections and celebrates solutions for restoring and healing Earth's communities. 

This year’s conference is particularly noteworthy, given the dramatic changes in the environment taking place throughout the world. Features and speakers of this year’s conference include the following:  

• Naim Edwards, an environmental steward with science degrees from Morehouse College and the University of Michigan. He directs Michigan State University’s first urban agriculture center, the Detroit Partnership for Food, Learning and Innovation. 
• Saturday morning panels organized and hosted by Planet Detroit’s founder and editor, Nina Ignaczak, including the following specialists: 
  
  • Lisa DelBuono, Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action 
  • Laprisha Daniels, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice 
  • Juan Jhong-Chung, climate justice director, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition 
  • Michelle Martinez, director, Tishman Center for Social Justice, and the Environment at the University of Michigan 
  • Kathryn Savoie, Ecology Center 
  • Andrew Bashi, Great Lakes Environmental Law Center 

• A presentation by Lunia Oriol and the student leadership of the University of Michigan Sustainable Food Program (UMSFP). 
• Talks by Luther Keith, executive director of ARISE Detroit! and Michal Betzold, author of 10 books including The Green New Meal. 
• Former GLBD conference Co-Chair Sr. Gloria Rivera will lead a “learnshop” and several graduate students/alums and professors from University of Detroit Mercy have organized panels and learnshops.  

In addition, the conference will offer comprehensive sessions for participants, as well as five tours on Friday morning and one on Saturday afternoon. Tours cover community urban garden projects in southeast and northwest Detroit, wastewater recycling, solar projects, as well as an environmental justice tour of key sites of pollution and environmental regeneration in Detroit. Youth participants will also experience compelling programs on Friday when they arrive with their teachers and on Saturday, when they can attend special youth programming next door to programs for their parents. Youth will have hands-on experience in generating solar power, cultivating mushrooms, composting, building bird houses and sculpting with clay. One learnshop will be led by GLBD award-winning young environmentalist, Jason Zarate.  

Nick Schroeck, Detroit Mercy associate dean of Experiential Education, associate professor of Law and conference co-chair, said that Earth “is our model, measure and mentor as we work toward a sustainable, racially equitable, inclusive community that fosters life-giving relationships, nurtures connections, and celebrates solutions for restoring and healing. We hope this conference offers an opportunity for the community to share experiences and strategies to ensure that humans are a positive force in our earth community while addressing the critical issues of environmental degradation, systemic racism and health disparities.” 

Gail Presbey, professor of Philosophy, director of the Carney Latin American Solidarity Archive and one of the conference co-chairs, agrees with Schroeck.  

“This conference is a great way for the University community to collaborate with community organizations in line with our Jesuit and Mercy mission to care for the Earth, our common home,” she explained. “Thanks to generous grants from the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, the Congregation of St. Joseph and the Fund for Equal Justice, we’re able to lower registration prices. Youth aged 12-18 can attend for a day for just $5 when accompanied by a parent or their teacher. Seniors and activists also receive discounts. No one is turned away, because volunteers can attend for free, if they offer two hours of service for each day of the conference,” Presbey added. 

This annual pollinator event is linked to the national Bioneers organization, the Bioneers Collective Heritage Institute. The mission of this conference is to promote a sustainable community that fosters life-giving relationships, nurtures connections, and celebrates solutions for restoring and healing Earth's communities. The conference at Detroit Mercy includes recorded keynote addresses from the national Bioneers conference that took place in May in San Francisco. Attendees at the Detroit conference will hear from:   

• Alexandria Villaseñor, who co-founded the U.S. Youth Climate Strike movement at age 13. Now 16, she is a contributing author to All We Can Save, an anthology of women climate leaders, and a child petitioner for the groundbreaking international complaint to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Children vs. Climate Crisis. 
• Nick Estes (Kul Wicasa/Lower Brule Sioux), an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and co-founder of The Red Nation in Albuquerque, N.M. 
• Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its chief relationship strategist, and co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. 
• Kate Aronoff, a Brooklyn, NY-based staff writer at The New Republic and author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet–And How We Fight Back. 
• Jason McLennan, one of the world’s most influential visionaries in contemporary architecture and green building, past winner of Engineering News Record’s National Award of Excellence and of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize.  

For more information about sessions and registration for the 17th annual Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit conference, please visit https://www.udmercy.edu/academics/special/bioneers/index.php. To learn more about how you can become a sponsor, please contact conference Co-Chairs Gail Presbey at presbegm@udmercy.edu and Nick Schroeck at schroenj@udmercy.edu. 

For more about the National Bioneers organization, visit https://bioneers.org