October 17, 2026

Conversation Project: Can We Get Along?

Rodney King’s iconic question still resonates today. Despite decades of social justice movements, police brutality and divisions persist in the United States. COVID-19 has only added more challenges. How can we connect to each other during these times? What holds us back from connecting with each other? How do our personal experiences contribute to barriers, or and have the potential to break them down? Join facilitator Chisao Hata as she holds space to examine individual questions on race, cultural values, and what brings us together and what separates us.

Register for this free event.

10:30 a.m., Willamette Heritage Center, Salem

November 7, 2026

Are We Created Equal?

This conversation will explore equality. It is a core national value of the United States, even if we have not always lived up to that value. What does it mean to say, as the writers of the Declaration of Independence did, that “all men are created equal” and to declare that this is a self-evident truth? In what ways are or should we be equal? How does this ideal of equality show up in our daily lives, our communities, and our politics? How, finally, has this ideal of equality changed over the past 250 years—and how might it change further over the next 250?

11:00 a.m., Grants Pass Library, Grants Pass

February 10, 2027

Consider This: Housing and Homelessness in Rural Communities

Discussions about housing and homelessness tend to focus on a few key cities such as San Francisco, Austin, and Seattle. Can studies from those places explain what we experience in college towns, small cities, and rural areas? With an issue so intimately connected to place, shouldn’t we focus on the nuances of location? Sociologist Leontina Hormel, in conversation with Oregon Humanities’ Adam Davis, will explore the challenges of housing and the experience of homelessness outside urban areas.

, PRAx, Corvallis