Cooper Conversations, facilitated by University Honors Program students, aim to bring together community leaders with Honors students for regular, meaningful conversations about important, if difficult, issues. This venue gives students access to important community partners to help them grow their success networks while allowing community partners to connect with some of UNL’s best and brightest students.
Each conversation focuses on an important topic related to community building and civic engagement, tied to the annual theme of the E. N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. These conversations further the goals of the Honors Program, specifically helping students develop 21st century skills and mindsets that will make them ready for an uncertain, globalized world. For each conversation, the Honors Program and its campus partners invite community leaders to gather with undergraduate students while engaging in authentic conversations about relevant current topics.
The Cooper Foundation offers financial support for Cooper Conversations and for the E. N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. Since 1934, the Cooper Foundation has invested in the people of Nebraska through its mission to support strong, sustainable organizations, innovative ideas, and ventures of significant promise.
Fall 2025 Conversations
Thursday, Sep 18, 5:30-6:30pm
Swanson Auditorium, Nebraska Union
Belonging: Finding Connection in a Lonely World - Short Films Screening
With fellow students and community members, exploring the importance of social connection worldwide
Wednesday, Oct 1, 3:30-4:45pm
Knoll Residential Center 257
TBD - Collaboration with Honors seminar on Bioethics & the Law
Check back for more info!
Thursday, Nov 6, 3:30-4:45pm
TBD
TBD - Collaboration with Honors Future Healers
Check back for more info!
Previous Conversations
2024-2025: Lessons from the Natural World
Birds of a Feather: Birding as a Catalyst for Belonging & Advocacy
With educators using birdwatching to find their community and their voice.
Nature Art: Drawing Connections to the Great Outdoors
With artists helping others learn about the natural world and conservation.
Mental Health Benefits of Nature
With scholars and practitioners exploring this connection in child development.
Conservation Photography
With local photographers showcasing the beauty and diversity of Nebraska’s ecosystems.
Holistic & Natural Approaches to Human Health
With providers supporting health and wellbeing through functional medicine, nutrition, and more.
2023-2024: Uprooted: Displacement, Migration and Searching for Home
Welcoming Lincoln: Embracing Immigrants and Refugees
With community leaders developing and implementing city strategies to welcome immigrants and refugees.
Refugee Women Rebuilding Lives, Building Businesses
With refugee entrepreneurs and those working alongside them.
Newcomers Navigating U.S. Healthcare
With immigrants adjusting to the ins and outs of the American healthcare system.
Forum Youth Panel: Displacement and Reimagining the American Dream
With local students and young professionals sharing their lived experiences as immigrants and refugees.
Immigration Law and Advocacy
With local and state-wide legal experts helping to navigate immigration law.
Healthcare & Housing
With community leaders providing access to care and housing.
PUSH Film Screening & Discussion
Exploring affordable housing as a fundamental human right.
2022-2023: Creativity to Solve Global Challenges
Innovative Local Efforts to Support Ukrainians
With campus/community leaders offering assistance to displaced Ukrainians through fundraising, traveling, volunteering, advocacy, and/or scholarship.
Saving the Pershing Mural: Public Art and Community Action
With local arts advocates, historians, and others engaged with the effort to remove, restore, and reinstall the 38-by-140-foot Pershing Center mural.
Creative Ways to Blend Culture and Care
With scholars, medical professionals, and others working to improve health outcomes through understanding of patients' cultures.
Creative Local Solutions to the Global Food System
With scholars and practitioners helping feed people locally and around the world.
Improving Healthcare Access in Rural Communities
With leaders working to improve healthcare access and outcomes in rural areas.
Emerging Transportation
With civil engineering and regional planning scholars, as well as leaders in local/public transportation.
2021-2022: Moments of Reckoning
Global Starts with Local
With community leaders in immigration/refugee support.
Black Men in White Coats: Screening & Discussion
With UNMC, discussing a documentary about Black men in the medical field.
Racial Bias in Artificial Intelligence
With campus/community leaders in computer science and diversity and inclusion.
Tackling the Complex Dynamics of Race, Sports and Social Justice
With Dr. Lawrence Chatters and former Huskers Dr. Jamie Williams, Jay Foreman, and Michael Rose-Ivey.
Maternal & Reproductive Healthcare for BIPOC Women
With leaders focused on prenatal care, access/barriers to care, and post-natal support for mother and child.
Forum Youth Panel "Performative Activism: Youths Reckoning with Racial Justice"
With university and high school student activists discussing racial justice.