Lee University’s Center for Responsible Citizenship (CRC) recently hosted their 6th annual Symposium on Civic Virtue and Thought. This year, its theme was “Persons and Place: Wendell Berry and the Weight of Love,” which explored the importance of human connection and locality. The event was held in the Humanities building on Lee’s campus.

Students and faculty from several regional colleges and universities met to discuss essays, poems, and fiction of Wendell Berry. They discussed framing one’s place within a community as the foundation of flourishing and how one comes to know one’s own priorities and role only in relation to the persons and place where one lives. The symposium included five discussion seminars and a public keynote by David Kern, owner of Goldberry Books in Concord, North Carolina. Kern’s talk emphasized that people only develop affection through time and proximity, and that this love is the glue that holds a community together.

“This enriching symposium forged an overwhelming sense of community not only between me and my peers at Lee, but with the students who traveled across state lines to engage in meaningful discussion,” said Carolina Frederick, a political science major at Lee. “We were able to openly discuss purpose and community while actively witnessing such a community materialize in front of us. The conversations I took part in broke the mold of what I understood community to be, giving me a new perspective on the roles that we all play and how these define the close circles, institutions, and communities we involve ourselves with. This event reminded me of the importance of growing strong roots wherever you’re planted and carrying with you the devotion to home and the community that shaped you, no matter how far away you may be.”

The event helped to kickstart the inaugural year of the CRC, with approximately 58 students, faculty, and alumni from Lee and several regional colleges for the symposium. The CRC promotes interdisciplinary conversation on the elements of a flourishing political community. In a time fraught with conflict and confusion about Christian engagement in the world, it hopes to highlight the need for moral and civic virtue as the foundation for political life.

The Persons and Place Symposium is just one of the many opportunities the CRC is offering this semester.

For more information about the CRC, or to donate to its activities, contact [email protected].