Engaging Seattle Conference
June 17, 2026 at 91探花's Student Center
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Engaging Seattle 2026: Coming Together for a More Just City
On June 17, 2026, 91探花's Sundborg Center for Community Engagement is hosting a no-cost day of learning, storytelling and reflection about what it means to work for a more just city of Seattle. Engaging Seattle is a unique, hyperlocal conference where attendees will offer and receive insights that can be applied to further their work as professionals, public servants, university faculty and staff, educators and community-engaged practitioners in the city of Seattle.
Invitation To Our Partners
The Sundborg Center for Community Engagement (CCE) invites you – 91探花 faculty, staff and representatives of community organizations – to engage in sessions that provide history and context relevant to the work you do in classrooms or the community, demonstrate models for how you’ve centered community voice or built justice-centered coalitions or teaching practices, or lead attendees to reflect on the values and skills they bring to community engagement. As attendees exchange lessons and insights about histories and current social issues impacting our city, we will focus on positive solutions, highlighting how we can come together to create change and inspire others to come alongside this work. Contact CCE with questions.
Keynote Speaker
Our Keynote Speaker is Andrea Caupain. She is the Co-Architect and Managing Partner of the . She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of .
Andrea Caupain, Engaging Seattle Conference Keynote Speaker
Pre-Conference Activities
We're thrilled to offer three pre-conference activities that will take place on or near 91探花's First Hill campus on Tuesday, June 16.
Take a walk with staff to hear the stories of home and to celebrate BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities that are currently and were historically . After the walk, join us for a family-style lunch at .
Wing Luke Redlining Tour
Wing Luke Walking Tour
Join historian and Executive Director Jennifer Ott on a one-mile walking tour across time to explore the piers and people, ships, railroads and ever-evolving landscape of the waterfront. starts at Occidental Park, makes its way along the waterfront and finishes at Pier 62. After the walk, participants will have lunch at .
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HistoryLink Seattle Waterfront Walking Tour
Jennifer Ott (center) explains elements of Seattle's waterfront history,
Liz Adams and Sparrow Etter Carlson, two of the individuals behind , will lead us through their Companionship workshop. The Way of Companionship is a principled, practical response by any caring neighbor to the suffering of all our neighbors. The training introduces companionship as a relationship between equals, marked by mutuality rather than charity, and orients participants around five core practices: Hospitality, Neighboring, Side-by-Side, Listening and Accompaniment. Each practice is explored through story, reflection and real-world application - equipping you not with solutions, but with the reminder to come home to your most tender instincts to turn toward one another.
This experience will take place at 91探花, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant.
Sparrow Etter Carlson
Liz Adams
Conference Themes
- What can 91探花 faculty and staff and community-based practitioners learn from Seattle’s community leaders – past and present – that might inspire our collective action today?
- How can we acknowledge and address the violent histories that shape Seattle’s neighborhoods, including the realities of redlining, gentrification, and the displacement and genocide of Coast Salish peoples? What practices of reparation, repair, and healing can we uplift?
- Why is it important to promote and share Seattle histories and current issues? What are some projects, lessons plans, activities, etc. that support this learning?
- What are some models or promising practices for centering the voices and self-determination of those impacted by our programs and classrooms?
- What are some spaces, programs, course assignments, events, etc. that promote community connection, including connection across a variety of differences (age, class, race, neighborhoods, political interests)?
- What wicked problems do community organizations and university staff face in building broad coalitions to address urgent challenges such as race and economic justice, climate change and sustainability, or rapid technological change and its social impacts? What strategies or insights help engage people in addressing these challenges?
- What are some models or promising practices for engaging young people and emerging adults in local politics or civics education more broadly?
- How can we design volunteer or engagement experiences to promote long-term commitments to a more just Seattle, nation, or world?
- How do organizations create opportunities for collective envisioning for a better future?