By Braden Ochs | Echo
As of this week, the CARE conference, an all-day annual seminar-style Taylor event sponsored by the Honors Guild and Village Tree, has been postponed from April to an undecided fall semester date.
The CARE conference is an event that brings in experts on vulnerable children, both in the U.S. and abroad. This conference focuses on themes which include orphan care, foster care and adoption, anti-trafficking, refugees and environmental justice. It is aimed toward college students, including any Taylor student with a desire to learn more about orphans and vulnerable children around the world.
The Honors Program, sponsor for the conference, has decided to postpone it to Fall 2017. Scott Moeschberger, associate dean of the Honors Program, said:
"We looked through all the constituents and all the people that could be impacted by it, and we felt like moving it to the fall was a better decision." Moeschberger believed scheduling it for the Spring semester would conflict with many other Taylor events going on during this time, such as Airband, Heritage Weekend, Nostalgia Night and others.
The CARE conference, despite its postponement, is an event the campus can put on their calendars. Leila Vanest, student cabinet member for the Honors Program, knows about some of the 2015 speakers including Susan Hillis, Johnny Carr and Jena Lee Nardella.
"We had a speaker (last year) talk about adoption; the theology of adoption and why Jesus is a model for adopting orphans," Vanest said.
The hope for the conference is to engage students with passions to adopt or care for children. It provides a good way to educate students who are already interested in or want to learn more about vulnerable children.
"My hope," Moeschberger said, "is to empower students to make changes in this world and to equip them to make these changes."
The CARE conference will be rescheduled on a Friday between October 27 and November 3 on a Friday. It will be hosted in the LaRita Boren Campus Center.
