Storytelling fosters community and interpersonal connection. It helps us recognize the importance of shared experience while also bringing us closer to those who are different from us. By focusing this year’s conference on stories and storytelling, we have the opportunity to highlight how individual and cultural narratives shape our education, our research, and our academic trajectories.

Situated on the St. John’s River, Jacksonville is a city of bridges. They are symbols of connection-connection between portions of the city, of course, but also connections between different cultures, connections between old and new, connections between history and progress. We invite you to use Jacksonville’s bridges as a metaphor to think about what connections look like to the future, to the world to come. Of course, as always, presentations do not have to reflect the theme of the conference, but feel free to “bridge the theme” wherever appropriate.