The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale is hosting their Renewing Illinois Summit.
They hold the summit biennially. The focus of the summit is different every year, this summits theme is Higher Education in Illinois: Preparing for a Tsunami of Change.
John Shaw, the director of the Institute says he came up with the idea when he moved back to Illinois after 25 years in Washington D.C.
"So I moved back to Illinois and just the mood had changed." Says Shaw, "It was just much more negative and so one of the things that occurred to me; rather than just sitting and lamenting how bad things are, just to bring together young people who have a stake in their state and this future and just kind of talk about what we can do."
The goal of the summit is to get students talking about the issues they see in higher education and what should be done to fix those issue. Shaw says a lot of questions will be raised, potentially even some that are hard to swallow.
"It raises a lot of questions, I mean, do we have —there's twelve public universities in Illinois— Do we really need twelve? But, you know, if you close down Eastern or Western or whatever, I mean it would devastate communities that are hugely tied to the universities and so forth." says Shaw.
The summit will have some special guests. Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and SIU System President Dan Mahony will both be keynote speakers at the summit.
The summit will take place at the SIU Student Center on October 24th and 25th.
For more information, visit paulsimoninstitute.siu.edu
