49th ABS Annual Conference: Full Schedule

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9:00am MDT

Experiencing Social Transformation Discourse

Saturday August 2, 2025 9:00am - 10:15am MDT

We invite attendees to enter and explore key concepts in one of our courses from our graduate-level certificate program through an immersive process. Attendees freely walk through a museum style gallery where they engage with four interactive stations. Participants explore public discourse as a strategy for change, reading our reality, underlying material assumptions, and the need for being in a mode of learning. The gallery walk-through concludes with a 15-minute Q&A reflection. This process highlights the learning gained by the Wilmette Institute to promote the current global Plan through its Social Transformation Certificate program.

Speakers

Ymasumac Marañón Davis

Educational Consultant, Limitless Learning Lab

Ymasumac Marañón shares ancestry from the Quechua of Bolivia and early pilgrims of New England. She previously worked as a bilingual educator and administrator. She is a doctoral candidate for Education for Social Justice at the University of San Diego and serves as a Course Designer... Read More →

Chitra Golestani

Chitra Golestani is Associate Director of the Wilmette Institute, Consortial Faculty at the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, and Adjunct Faculty at North Carolina Central University. She co-founded the Paulo Freire Institute at UCLA where she is a guest lecturer and obtained... Read More →

Justin Scoggin

After holding positions in Ecuador in education, including school principal and course developer for the Ministry of Education, Justin moved back to the United States in 2020, finished his Ph.D. in Education at the University of Idaho, and now works with the Wilmette Institute as... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 9:00am - 10:15am MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

9:00am MDT

From Fragmentation to Cohesion: Regenerating Society Through Social Capital

Saturday August 2, 2025 9:00am - 10:15am MDT

TBA

Social capital is posited as a critical resource within the "social commons," with a role in fostering trust, cooperation, and societal resilience. Drawing from the Bahá'í Faith's principles of unity and the oneness of humankind, it highlights how Bahá'í community-building efforts—through transformation of individuals, communities, and institutions—can regenerate social capital. The Bahá'í framework offers unique insights into restoring trust and cohesion by addressing systemic inequities and promoting collective well-being. Through the lens of Social Affinity Flow Theory (SAFT), this talk connects spiritual and material dimensions of social capital to sustainable development and governance.

Speakers

Christopher Gourdine

Dr. Gourdine currently serves as Asst. Dean at the School of Business and Technology at Maryville University. He has taught numerous courses within management and is an Air Force veteran. He has been a member of the Baha’i Faith since 1996, has served in numerous roles and now... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 9:00am - 10:15am MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

10:30am MDT

An Arts-grounded Practice of Intentional Self-Reflection for Community Building

Saturday August 2, 2025 10:30am - 11:45am MDT

TBA

Intentional self-reflection is critical to the success of community building. We will share and engage in the practice of PhotoSophia (light and wisdom) as sacred long-looking and arts-grounded exploration. Bahá’u’llah writes “true loss is for him whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of his self.” In what ways does our ignorance become a serious obstacle to overcoming our inherent racism and sexism in community building efforts? PhotoSophia has been used around the world with adults, youth and children to “bring thyself to account each day”, helping us embrace vulnerability and authentic unity, in a humble posture of learning.

Speakers

Chuck Egerton

Lecturer, Peace and Conflict Studies, University of North Carolina Greensboro

Chuck Egerton Ph.D. is an educator, photographer, artist, writer and Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) practitioner. He taught photography for 25 years and is a lecturer at UNC Greensboro in PACS. He is the creator of PhotoSophia, an arts-grounded spiritual practice to know yourself... Read More →

Trina Gluckman

Trina Gluckman was born and raised in the West Indies and has been an active practitioner for racial and gender justice in Lake Oswego, Oregon and now as a founding facilitator of the ABS Whiteness and Patriarchy reading group. Trina is a Critical Care Nurse and resides in Hawai... Read More →

Dina Sandgreen

I am an Inuk woman, who’s discovering how to embody the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh through my being and through my work as an actress/poet; how to contribute to the healing of Inuit in Greenland. With a background in theatre and interest in other forms of artistic expressions... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 10:30am - 11:45am MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

2:00pm MDT

Consultation: A Spiritual Technology for Transformative Times: A Hands-on Interactive Journey

Saturday August 2, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT

Glen 208

The spiritual technology, consultation, stands alongside ubuntu and other indigenous circle methods that mute competition, dominance and hierarchy while fostering just, collective decisionmaking. Welcomed by comrades in Baltimore’s Black community, at work and in the field of service, it's one of the last tools Baha’is tend to share outwardly. After briefly reviewing key elements aligned between Bahá'í Writings, indigenous practices, some practical adaptations from John Kolstoe’s “Developing Genius” and the facilitators' work, we’ll collectively create guidelines to share for introducing consultation in our circles of action using interactive and computer assisted social research tools.

Speakers

Eliza Cooper

Eliza centers Black community to uplift all of mankind. She is versed in African-centered communal practices, e.g. ubuntu, and certified in several facilitation techniques hosting regular workshops and events, like Black Love Day. A friend of the Faith, she learned about consultation... Read More →

Geri Peak

Geri brings a liberatory lens to social transformation through evaluation, applied research, facilitation and coaching, integrating spiritual principles and methods into her efforts. Balancing Bahá'í service, family life, artmaking, cat fancying, food production, work and promoting... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT
Glen 208 South building - 2nd level

Community, Breakout

2:00pm MDT

Reflections on the Practice of Discourse: Widening Circles of Unity and Participation in a Fragmented World

Saturday August 2, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT

TBA

This panel explores the central questions of ‘what is discourse and what is it for?’ and continues this exploration by asking what intellectual norms serve as obstacles to realizing oneness and unity through public discourse and how can discourse contribute to societal transformation built on principles of oneness. Panelists will draw from experiences participating in discourses in four diverse fields (natural science, global health, art, and education), each with unique and shared historical patterns of thought, expectations pertaining to social change, and norms of communication. Participants will reflect on their own journeys in public discourse through interdisciplinary breakout groups.

Speakers

Raphael Lencucha

Raphael Lencucha is an Associate Professor of global health at McGill University who participates in policy discourses at national and international levels. He will reflect on the discourses of global health equity, which, while uncovering injustices associated with coloniality, continue... Read More →

sujaya neupane

Sujaya Neupane is a neuroscientist at York University, Canada. He studies how the brain enables our perceptual and mnemonic functions. Sujay will share his reflection on engaging in discourse in natural science, where the concept of two-fold empowerment is met with fragmented views... Read More →

Ezgi Ozyonum

Ezgi Ozyonum is a PhD candidate in Education and a Lecturer at Concordia University. She employs a decolonial lens to examine international students' discourses in Canadian universities. She will reflect on the intersections between Bahá’í principles and decolonial perspectives... Read More →

Lorraine Pritchard

Lorraine Pritchard is a Montreal-based visual artist whose work concerns patterns of inner thought being reflected outwardly through considerations of rhythm, time/space or order/spontaneity. From the viewpoint infused by art, she will offer an alternative perspective on discourse... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

3:30pm MDT

Bringing Those Who Have Been Excluded into the Circle of Intimate Friends

Saturday August 2, 2025 3:30pm - 4:45pm MDT

TBA

As a family and addictions doctor with 30 years of experience working in Alberta, I would like to share experiences of helping people improve their health through consultation with patients, and creating the environment where a healing community can form amongst clinic patients and beyond. This presentation will include sharing by a member of an oft-ignored minority, and how the lack of consultation about health lead to a tragedy, and the moving beyond this to create better health for all.

Speakers

Tania Nordli

I became a Baha'i during my first year of medical school, and remain excited to this day of the power of unity and consultation for healing. I trained in family medicine and addiction medicine, and mostly worked from a solutions-focussed framework. I have worked in jails, psychiatric... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 3:30pm - 4:45pm MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

3:30pm MDT

Building Community by Creating "Common Memory"

Saturday August 2, 2025 3:30pm - 4:45pm MDT

TBA

Joan Young proposes to look at her rekindling of friendship with Indigenous Bahá’ís whom she first met in the 1970s — as well as her visits with their non-Indigenous friends — to collect life stories. She aims to demonstrate the profound value of friendship across the cultural divide and to connect these relationships to the current dialogue around Truth and Reconciliation. She contends that building "common memory," a term used by Indigenous leader, Georges Erasmus, is essential in the building of community. Participants will be inspired to write the unique histories which they have access to.

Speakers

Joan Young

Writer/educator

Joan Young has lived in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains most of her life. Talk to her about heartfelt sharing between people from differing cultural 'silos', and in particular, having Indigenous individuals share their stories with you. Joan's professional life was spent teaching... Read More →

Saturday August 2, 2025 3:30pm - 4:45pm MDT
TBA

Community, Breakout

9:00am MDT

9:00am MDT

10:30am MDT

2:00pm MDT

2:00pm MDT

3:30pm MDT

3:30pm MDT

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