Engaging Seattle Conference

June 17, 2026 at Seattle University's Student Center

  1. Center for Community Engagement
  2. Engaging Seattle Conference
Looking south across the SU campus

Engaging Seattle 2026: Coming Together for a More Just City

On June 17, 2026, Seattle University'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 – Seattle University faculty, staff and representatives of community organizations – to propose 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: Andrea Caupain

Our Keynote Speaker is Andrea Caupain. She is the Co-Architect and Managing Partner of the Black Future Co-op Fund. She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Ile Kimoyo.

Keynote Speaker at Engaging Seattle 2026

Pre-Conference Activities

We're thrilled to offer three pre-conference activities that will take place on or near Seattle University's First Hill campus on Tuesday, June 16.

Take a walk with Wing Luke Museum staff to hear the stories of home and to celebrate BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities that are currently and were historically marginalized in Seattle. After the walk, join us for a family-style lunch at Tai Tung Restaurant.

Join HistoryLink 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. This walking tour starts at Occidental Park, makes its way along the waterfront and finishes at Pier 62. After the walk, participants will have lunch at Pike Place Market.

Sacred Streets will offer a gathering that trains and empowers people to establish and sustain reciprocity-focused relationships with those living at the edges of society. The Way of Companionship invites participants to unlearn traditional volunteerism and relearn the practices of genuine connection and belonging. This experience will take place at Seattle University, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant. 

Conference Themes

  • What can Seattle University 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?