NASHVILLE, Tenn. – College students, campus administrators and non-profit professionals from across the country will converge at Vanderbilt University March 3-5 for discussions, networking and workshops on how to improve the quality of life on their campuses and in their communities through community service, activism and socially responsible work.
Vanderbilt’s Office of Active Citizenship and Service and The Division of Student Life, with support from the College of Engineering, is hosting the 22nd annual C.O.O.L. Idealist Conference, which is the largest convening in the country of campus community members involved in community service and civic life. The conference is organized by Idealist on Campus, a program of Action Without Borders, a non-profit organization that connects people, organizations and resources to help build a better world.
A number of events will be held across Vanderbilt’s campus including 150 workshops, two-thirds of which will be student-led. Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange and co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and Patrick Guerriero, president of Log Cabin Republicans and of the Liberty Education Forum, will deliver keynote addresses during the conference.
Benjamin, who will speak during the 7 p.m. All-Conference Celebration at Vanderbilt’s Langford Auditorium on Friday, March 3, has been an advocate for social justice for more than 20 years. She has been described as “one of America’s most committed and most effective-fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by The Los Angeles Times.
Guerriero, former mayor of Melrose, Mass., and state representative and candidate for lieutenant governor in Massachusetts, is the leading conservative voice working to defeat the Federal Marriage Agreement. He will speak Sunday, March 5, at 1:30 p.m. at the conference’s closing event at Langford Auditorium. Guerriero has appeared on television programs such as Hardball with Chris Matthews, The O’Reilly Factor, Nightline, and Inside Politics, and has been quoted in several publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine and The Los Angeles Times. He has also written op-eds for The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe.
For more information about the conference, visit www.idealist.org/conferences/cool/2006/.
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Media Contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
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