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The Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska invites all who engage with the diverse peoples, cultures, and natural environments of the Great Plains to submit proposals for the 52nd Great Plains Conference, to be held at the Eugene T. Mahoney State Park in Ashland, Nebraska, April 2-3, 2027.
The theme of this year’s conference, Healthy Great Plains: Wellness + Community + Healing, opens space for an array of urgent issues that require our collective expertise and attention. We invite proposals from all fields and methodologies.
Always an interdisciplinary event, The Great Plains Conference weaves together cutting-edge research, community knowledge, and creative expression covering all things Great Plains-related for a general audience. Scholars, practitioners, community members, leaders, and students of all levels are welcome.
Themes and Keynotes
This year's health and wellness theme is arranged into three broad categories with keynote speakers for each.
Connecting with Nature
Richard Louv is a journalist and best-selling author of ten books, including Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives - And Save Theirs, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, and Noticing: Intimate Encounters with the Natural World. His books have been translated and published in 24 countries, and helped launch an international movement to connect children, families, and communities to nature. He is co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Children & Nature Network, an organization helping build the movement.
Cultural and Environmental Restoration
New York Times-bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith (Mvskoke Nation) is the 2027 American Indian Writers Award winner, 2026 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature winner, a two-time American Indian Youth Literature [Young Adult] Award winner, a two-time Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award candidate, a NSK Neustadt Laureate, and the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperChildren’s. Leitich Smith has also been named to deliver the 2026 ALSC Children’s Literature Lecture. Recent titles include Here Come the Grandmas! Here Come the Aunties! Firefly Season, and Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories.
Community Health, Healthy Communities
Siobhan Wescott, MD, MPH, is director of the American Indian Health Program of the UNMC College of Public Health, where she also is an associate professor in the Department of Health Promotion. She leads the college's Nebraska HEALING Project, which stands for Nebraska Health, Education, Advocacy and Leadership across Indigenous and Native Generations. Prior to joining UNMC in 2021, Dr. Wescott was co-director of Indians Into Medicine at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where she was an assistant professor in its Department of Family and Community Medicine and an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health at the North Dakota State University.
Possible Proposal Topics
Topics for panels, workshops, roundtables, and individual papers could consider the following questions but are not limited to these.
How does our location in the Great Plains—the prairies, the Sandhills, the Ogallala Aquifer, and other natural formations—affect the health of our communities, and how do we care for the health of our natural environment?
How does uncovering or amplifying new histories contribute to cultural healing?
How can educators across the Great Plains encourage community healing?
What role does new scientific research play in healing the people and natural environments of the Great Plains?
How can medical professionals sustain their own wellbeing? What health-care-access issues do we face in the Plains today?
How can we learn from the Great Plains—the natural environment, the plants and animals—to improve wellbeing?
How can Indigenous cultural knowledge fruitfully reshape how we live?
How can we restore native animal and plant populations in the Great Plains? Which programs and organizations are doing so successfully?
In what new ways are people improving the health of their Great Plains communities?
How does the political landscape of the Great Plains improve (or impede) the health of its communities?
How does agriculture impact our community health? How can new agricultural methods and/or Traditional Ecological Knowledge help us heal ourselves and the land?
How can different disciplines help residents of this region connect to the environment and/or their health?
What new medical innovations are addressing local challenges, and how does health care get distributed across the Great Plains?
Proposal Submission Guidelines
The Center welcomes proposals with diverse formats but will give preference to organized panels, roundtables, and workshops. Individual presentations will also be considered. Panels, workshops, roundtables, and individual papers that engage in interdisciplinary (rather than single-discipline) approaches will be prioritized. Likewise, proposals that include a diverse group of participants (multiple disciplines, methodologies, ranks, and/or institutions or organizations) are highly encouraged. Proposals that center one or more of the above themes are encouraged.
Session proposals must include the following items:
Title of proposed session
Moderator information: name, rank/title, institutional or organizational affiliation, and email address
Participant information (3 maximum): names, ranks/titles, institutional or organizational affiliations, and email addresses
Session description: a 150-word (maximum) description of the session’s topic and goals, which will appear in the final program
Format description: a 50-word (maximum) description of the session’s format and procedures
Individual paper or presentation (15 minutes maximum) proposals must include the following items:
Title of proposed paper or presentation
Presenter information: name, rank/title, institutional or organizational affiliation, and email address
150-word abstract of paper or presentation
Submit an individual presentation
Please direct any questions regarding proposals and submissions to cgps@unl.edu.
Timeline
Submit proposals by Nov. 16, 2026
Acceptance by Dec. 10, 2026
Registration opens Feb. 1, 2027