Chancellor David K. Scott, conference host, says he believes "a powerful movement" is underway to transform education, the workplace, and organizations through "integrative approaches that overcome fragmentation, specialization, and isolation in life and learning. The movement represents a search for greater meaning, wholeness, and connection."

"The conference, in conjunction with many others in academe, business and industry," he says, "will set the stage for education in an 'integrative age' which will prepare citizens for a new millennium in which spirituality will be a natural ally rather than an enemy in the education of engaged citizens for an enlightened democracy."

"Student involvement is key to integrating spirituality and higher education, so we're glad to have students like the Self Knowledge Symposium as part of this conference," adds Diane Dana, project coordinator for the national EasT project, co-sponsor of the event. "The SKS has a great reputation for creating programs that are exciting and relevant for both students and adults."

The general conference will feature several internationally prominent speakers: Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Science of the Learning Organization; David Whyte, poet, corporate consultant, and author of The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America; Margaret Wheatley, author of the best-selling book Leadership and the New Science and A Simpler Way; Danah Zohar, physicist and author of the new book SQ: Connecting with Our Spiritual Intelligence and Rewiring the Corporate Brain; Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union; Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening to the Sacred: Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch. For a detailed conference schedule, visit www.umass.edu/spiritual_conf/pi2.html or contact Karen Manz, Conference Coordinator, 413/577-3355, spiritual@chancellor.umass.edu.

The student portion of the conference, led by the SKSF, will feature workshops and discussions such as: "The Zen of Writing: Writing as a Spiritual Discipline," "Spiritual Leadership: Understanding the Difference Between Your Job and Your Work," "Einstein, Bill Gates, and The Buddha, " "Climbing Mt. Everest: Spiritual Lessons, " and "Passage Transformation: Reviving Ritual in the Lives of Young People." For a detailed student conference schedule, visit www.selfknowledge.org/events/eastsched.htm.

There will also be more than 50 concurrent sessions including speakers Richard Cimino, author and editor of Religion Week; Judith Neal, director of The Center for Spirit at Work at the University of New Haven; Stewart Levine, author of Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict into Collaboration, and August Turak, software entrepreneur and Executive Director of the Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation. For a detailed concurrent program schedule, visit www.umass.edu/spiritual_conf/cs.html.

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The Education as Transformation Project: www.wellesley.edu/RelLife/transformation/index.html
The EDUCATION as Transformation Project is a multi-year organizing effort begun in 1996 to initiate a national dialogue about religious pluralism and spirituality in higher education. The project is currently working with more than 350 colleges and universities to facilitate the creation of multi-constituency dialogue teams including faculty, students, administrative staff, alumni, trustees and religious life professionals within their institutions. With leadership from a national group of project advisors, the EDUCATION as Transformation Project has generated great excitement within the higher education community.

The Eugene M. Isenberg School of Management: http://www.som.umass.edu
Part of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, their mission is to advance and embody the University's goals as a research institution and a land grant institution for the 21st century. They do so by 1) providing high quality education programs that prepare qualified students for careers in management and related fields; 2) creating and sharing new knowledge through faculty and doctoral research; and 3) providing outreach services to the Commonwealth and other constituencies.

The Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation (SKSF): www.selfknowledge.org
The SKSF is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging people to consciously develop their own personal, moral and spiritual values and to live according to them. The SKSF has been praised as "the hottest thing happening in higher education today" by Dr. William Willimon, Dean of Duke University Chapel, ranked by Newsweek as one of the top ten preachers in the English-speaking world, and author of The Search for Meaning. At the forefront of the national interest in spirituality, the SKSF creates experiential learning programs and social contexts within which people can explore the deeper questions in life, developing intellectual understanding and personal character in a quest for the life worth living. The SKSF advises the SKS campus groups, sponsors a non-student discussion group, and co-sponsors meetings, lectures, retreats and The Symposium spiritual journal.