Secular Student Alliance 2023 National Conference

Conference Schedule

We are in the process of updating the conference schedule on a regular basis. Events, workshops, meals, and times may change. Please check back soon for more information.

Thursday, June 15

Arrival Day

Plan to arrive on Thursday to make your travel plans easier. The campus housing will be available for students. Usually, students hangout in the lobby and welcome other students as they arrive.

Oak Residence Hall Check In

Call the RA at (314) 250-7086 when you arrive at the residence hall to check in

Welcome Pizza Party

6:30pm

Friday, June 16

Breakfast

7:30am - 8:30am | Provincial House

Conference Registration Open

Starting at 9am

Exhibit Table Set-Up

9am to 12pm

Pre-Conference Workshop - Street Epistemology

10am to 12pm | MSC 314

Presented by Pierce Watkins

Description

Street Epistemology gives you tools to discuss the most difficult topics that mean a lot to you and the people around you. It helps you to better understand the views of others, and maybe change a mind or two along the way.

The presentation will feature transcriptions of actual Street Epistemology conversations, analyzing the reasons behind specific questions and their success in these situations.

This workshop will provide you with practical experience through role-play to prepare you to have productive, respectful conversations with theists and maybe even win them over to secular views. A fan-favorite of any conference, SE will help you be a better secular advocate.

Opening Plenary Session

1pm | MSC Century Room

Welcome from St Louis Alderman Bill Stephens

Conference Workshops

2pm

Why You Must UnKoch Your Campus

Presented by Jasmine Banks - UnKoch My Campus

Charles Koch and his constellation of dark money billionaires have been engaged in a decades long battle to exert influence over one of our pillars of democracy: higher education. Through gift agreements, campus think tanks, professors, and more Charles Koch floods campuses with his unpopular ideas.

Koch's strategy of social change has led to climate disinformation, stalled progress on climate action, the repeal of reproductive healthcare and much more.

UnKoch My Campus helps students learn how BIG philanthropy is using their campus to advance a regressive agenda that puts people and the planet in peril. Come hear the history of Koch's influence on academia and start learning how to effectively organize against this particular harm fueled by dark money. We'll share a number of organizing skills that have worked for us and describe what a typical campaign looks like. Students will leave with a better understanding of this problem as well as how they can start pushing back against it.

How to Craft Unforgettable Events and Attract New Members

Convivial Relations within Pluralistic Worlds

Presented by Anthony Cruz Pantojas - Tufts University Humanist Chaplain

Our current sociocultural realities require a shift from an individualistic sensibility to more interdependent relations where we are all regarded as implicated and responsible subjects. Conjuring otherwise and politicized ethics of care can critically provide opportunities for understanding others beyond tolerance, and to envision interfaith and interreligious discourses that integrate nontheistic perspectives. In this workshop, participants will learn how a nontheist orientation can nurture creative capacities of and cultivate deeper understanding about interreligious/cultural dialogue and cooperation through a transformative post-oppositional lens.

Break

3pm

Conference Workshops

3:15pm

Opinion: Activists Should Know How to Pitch, Write, and Publish Op-eds

Presented by Randy Jones Jr. of United Public Affairs and and Sami Al-Asady of SSA of Arizona State

This workshop will teach you what an op-ed is, why it's so important for secular activists, and how to actually pitch, write, and publish one. If you are an activist who would like to influence public opinion in their states and localities, this session is for you. You will learn: 1) the potential impact of a well-placed op-ed; 2) how to structure and write an op-ed; and 3) how to pitch an op-ed to the publication of the best fit.

Fighting the Rise of Theocratic Fascism from Tehran to St. Louis

Presented by Lily Bolourian - American Humanist Association

In this workshop, we will discuss the alarming rise of global theocratic fascism by exploring the parallels of the Iranian revolution, which transformed the world's oldest civilization into a theocratic dictatorship in a matter of months, with the meteoric rise of white Christian nationalism in the United States. Whether it is eradicating safe abortion access, destroying the environment, or oppressing dissidents, theocrats draw from the same play book. Participants will learn how authoritarian regimes can quickly take control of government and society, and what we can do to stop it.

Building Political Clout: How to Engage your Lawmakers

Presented by Sarah Levin - Secular Strategies

This workshop will train students how to engage with their lawmakers at any level of government, and how to build political clout that they can use to make positive change on the issues that matter to them. The workshop includes a lobbying and advocacy 101 combined with some material specific to college campuses—including how to navigate organizing students who aren't all registered to vote in the same state, and how to target and engage the future lawmakers and political influencers right on their campus.

The Future of American Religion and Politics

4:15pm | MSC Century Room

Ryan Burge | Eastern Illinois University

Description

Dinner

5:15pm to 6:30pm | Provincial House

Friday Night Magic Show with Matt Dillahunty

7pm | Provincial Chapel

Saturday, June 17

Breakfast

7:30am to 8:30am | Provincial House

Saturday Opening Plenary Session

9am | MSC Century Room

Featured student speaker: Paschal Obochi

Conference Workshops

10am

Growing Your Chapter and Collaborating with Others through M&M's

Post-Roe Abortion Care and Funding

Difficult Conversations: How to Talk With Your Family About Atheism and Living Your Best Life

Presented by Dave Warnock - I Am Dying Out Loud

Dave will be talking about how to live your best life from start to finish. We have only one life, and we get to be the author of the story that is that life. How to live and die out loud is about making sure that each of us lives and dies on our own terms.

Dave will also coach participants on how to have difficult conversations with family members who may not agree with their position on how to live and die your best life.

Panel Discussion: Legal Issues Facing Secular Students

11am | MSC Century Room

Featuring Liz Cavell, Geoffrey Blackwell, Elizabeth Reiner Platt and Andrew Seidel

Lunch

12pm

Conference Workshops

1pm

Engaging with Policy Makers: How to Talk to Elected Officials

Throwing Out the Bathwater but Keeping the Baby: Religion, Humanism, and Community

Presented by Paul Golin - Society for Humanistic Judaism

As an increasing percentage of Americans leave traditional religion, what can we take with us? What if any practices, rituals, and forms of community can be adapted from religion and applied in secular spaces? Join Paul for an interactive conversation exploring the relationship between religion and humanism. Share what is still personally meaningful from your own religious heritage. Or declare, as some certainly do, that we must discard it all to rid ourselves from religious dogma and superstitious beliefs.

Honing Your Debate Skills with Matt Dillahunty

Conference Workshops

2pm

Harnessing New Technologies to Organize and Fundraise

Presented by Kazi Habib - Maverick Alliance of Secular Students

New technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-tech computers, and software programs give us many opportunities to promote our campus organizations, network with other communities, and create opportunities for fundraising. But many of us don't know how to use these resources.

Kazi managed to launch an NFT fundraising program where he used AI to generate graphic designs based on SSA's "Graveyard of the Gods" theme and mint NFTs that are available for purchase on the global NFT market called 'opensea.io.' He will teach you how he did it, and how you can harness new technologies to fundraise and grow your chapter. He'll even teach you some basic coding and programming skills to create your own top-down RPG video game to promote your activities.

Running for Office

As If We Needed More Proof: How to use the newest DNA evidence to prove evolution

Presented by Dr. Jon Peters

Students will often have potentially heated discussions with other students and family who reject Evolution. Newer findings from DNA studies of humans and the other great apes have revealed another "fossil record" that rises to the level of proof of human evolution. These three findings are shared ERVs, Human Chromosome 2 fusion and pseudogenes. Some writers have called these new discoveries so robust and solid for Evolution that those against this great scientific theory are now presented with a second Galileo moment.

Break

3pm

Conference Workshops

3:15pm

We Can All Be Leaders: How to Accept Help, Delegate Tasks and Avoid Burnout

Book Ban Activism: Using the Law to Fight Censorship

Secular Therapy: What it is and Why it is important

Presented by Darrel Ray - Recovering from Religion and The Secular Therapy Project

Counselors and Therapists are ethically bound to keep their personal beliefs out of therapy. Unfortunately, a huge number do not do this. A therapist who uses religious or supernatural ideas in therapy can often trigger a client who has experienced religious abuse or trauma.

In this presentation, Darrel will discuss evidence-based therapy for the lay person and encourage students interested in psychology to follow an evidence-based path in any graduate studies they pursue. Students interested in psychology or any of its adjacent professions will benefit from this presentation as will anyone interested in the importance of secular therapy in helping people with religious trauma.

Reimagining the Secular vs. Christian Nation Narrative

4:15pm | MSC Century Room

Kristina Lee | University of South Dakota

Description

The religious freedom debate often relies on two very different understandings of the United States founding: The idea that we were founded as a "Christian nation" or that we were founded as a "Secular nation." Advocates of both sides of this debate accuse the other of falsifying history to serve their purposes. Drawing on the work of historian David Sehat, I ask audiences to consider how these narratives are both true and false in their own ways. I contend it would serve the secular movement more effectively to resist the simple argument that the United States was founded as a secular nation and not a Christian nation. Instead, there is value in recognizing that, while the roots of secularism can be found in founding documents, in many ways the United States was a Christian nation culturally and at a state level. This Christian nationalism, however, came at the expense of religious freedom for religious minorities and atheists. By learning about the history of religious intolerance and the role secularism played in challenging it, we can rethink our narrative to not simply dismiss the Christian nation narrative but to encourage others to consider the consequences of the Christian nation narrative.

Dinner

5:15pm to 6:30pm | Provincial House

Fighting for Our Democracy - Shadow Capitalism and Christian Nationalism

7pm | Provincial Chapel

Featuring Senator Megan Hunt, Justice Horn, Andrew Hartzler and Jasmine Banks

Sunday, June 18

Breakfast

7:30am to 8:30am | Provincial House

Residence Hall Check Out

If your travel plans have you leaving on Sunday afternoon, please check out of the residence hall before coming to the Opening Plenary.

Podcaster Panel

9am | MSC Century Room

Featuring Sydney Davis Jr. Jr., Objectively Dan, Cynthia McDonald and Brady Hardin

Conference Workshops

10am

Getting Busy: Fighting for the Future of Sex Ed

Combating Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation

Presented by Jaimie Hileman - Trans Education Service

The current wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in state legislatures across the country is a direct threat to the health and safety of all LGBTQ+ people, especially trans folks. These attacks fit into a long-standing pattern of moral panics perpetrated by the Christian-right intended to detract from the real problems of gun violence, bigotry, and economic hardship that those right-wing leaders ignore. This workshop will help students understand where the current wave of bigoted legislation is coming from and what they can do to organize alongside the LGBTQ+ community to defeat these attacks.

Building Coalitions to Protect Church-State Separation & Combat Christian Nationalism

11am | MSC Century Room

Brian Silva | Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

Description

Activists gain power in numbers, by learning from and advocating alongside others who share a vision of freedom and equality but come from different backgrounds and experiences. Using the experience building our Missouri Abortion Access Project (MAAP) to fight a state abortion ban as a violation of religious freedom, you’ll learn about Americans United for Separation and Church’s experience building powerful coalitions with people of faith and the nonreligious. . You’ll also gain tips and discuss opportunities to engage – both personally and with your campus community – in ways to support church-state separation and the issues that depend on it, including reproduction freedom, LGBTQ+ equality, and more