The Fall COMPAS Conference explored the value trade-offs that are involved in pursuing competing visions of a sustainable future. The Spring COMPAS Conference on " Realizing Sustainability" turns to the practical: the challenge of realizing sustainability. Who bears responsibility for this challenge and how can we motivate the necessary shifts in public policy and personal behavior? If the Paris meetings represent a moment, as President Obama has stated, when "nations embrace their responsibility to assure a world worthy of our children," what policy implications follow from that change in moral viewpoint? The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of experts from communications, decision sciences, economics, law, philosophy, and political science, among other fields, to address these issues. See complete conference program

Leif Wenar, a Columbus native, now holds the Chair of Philosophy and Law at King's College London. After earning his bachelor's degree from Stanford, he edited an autobiographical volume by the Nobel-winning economist F.A. Hayek and was Karl Popper's research assistant. He went to Harvard to study with John Rawls, and while there took classes with Amartya Sen and led discussions for Michael Sandel's course on justice. He wrote his Harvard qualifying thesis on Karl Marx's theory of history, and his doctoral dissertation on property rights with Robert Nozick. In this presentation, Wenar will discuss how the world's most coercive regimes depend on trade of stolen natural resources, and how the West can lead a peaceful global revolution by ending dependence on authoritarian oil. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/wenarl

William Reno is professor of political science and director of the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge, 1995), Warlord Politics and African States (Lynne Rienner, 1999), Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge, 2011), and other works on the politics of conflict and the organization of armed groups in failed states. More information about his research is at http://www.willreno.org. Reno will discuss research explains variations in how armed groups organize their relations with surrounding communities in the context of conflict in collapsed states. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/renow

Alexander Thompson stands in front of the venue for the 2015 climate conference at Le Bourget in Paris.

In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, join the East Asian Studies Center and the Multicultural Center for a screening of " HAFU - The Mixed Race Experience in Japan" (2013, 85 minutes). Producer/director Megumi Nishikura will introduce the film and hold a question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the screening. According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, one in 49 babies in Japan today are born into families with one non-Japanese parent. This newly emerging minority in Japan is under-documented and under-explored in both literature and media. The feature-length HD documentary film seeks to open this increasingly important dialogue. The film explores race, diversity, multiculturalism, nationality, and identity within the mixed-race community of Japan. Read more

Hasan Kwame Jeffries is associate professor of history at Ohio State, where he teaches seminars on the civil rights and black power movements, and surveys in African American and American history. In 2009, Jeffries published Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt (NYU Press). The book tells the story of organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who ushered in the black power era by transforming rural Lowndes County, Alabama, from a citadel of violent white supremacy into the center of southern black militancy. His current book project, Stealing Home: Ebbets Field and Black Working Class Life in Post-Civil Rights New York, examines the experiences of the residents of Ebbets Field Apartments, an expansive housing complex built in 1962 on the site of old Ebbets Field, the former home of Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers.

Dagomar Degroot is an environmental historian who bridges disciplines to investigate how people confront changes in the natural world. He has written a book, currently in peer review, that furnishes the first detailed analysis of relationships between climate change and the "Golden Age" of the Dutch Republic. His ongoing projects trace the human consequences of 17th century Arctic cooling; investigate connections between climate change and early modern conflict; and identify how people have responded to environmental changes in space. Degroot is the founder of HistoricalClimatology.com, a website that attracts more than 100,000 viewers annually, and the co-founder of Climate History Network, an organization with more than 150 multidisciplinary members. In this lecture, Degroot examines whether climatic changes during the "Little Ice Age" from 1450 to 1850 led to more societal conflict. Read more and register at  http://go.osu.edu/degrootd

M. Sanjayan is a leading global conservation scientist, writer and an Emmy-nominated news contributor focused on the role of conservation in improving human well-being, wildlife and the environment. He serves on Conservation International's senior leadership team as executive vice president and senior scientist. Previously he was the senior scientist for The Nature Conservancy. His scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology. He is a Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute. With remarks on " Central Ohio's Contributions to Protecting Earth's Environments and Peoples" by Tom Stalf, CEO of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The event is free but registration is required.

Conference Presentation Requiring Travel?  Apply for the Ray Travel Award for Service and Scholarship!  Our Funding Cycle 3 Deadline is February 26, 2016.  Conference dates must begin on/between: May 4, 2016 - August 3, 2016. Read more

Professional Development Activities?  Apply for the Career Development Grant!  The grant awards up to $350 for professional development (non-research activities).  Our Funding Cycle 3 Deadline is February 26, 2016.  Professional activity dates must begin on/between: May 4, 2016 - August 3, 2016.  Apply by the application deadline if you are hoping to present at a conference, participate in a workshop, and etc. that falls within an application period's dates, even if you have not yet received word regarding your conference/workshop submission. Read more