EOU to host free CEAD diversity conference May 16 on La Grande campus

Eastern Oregon University will use its 15th annual CEAD conference to turn a La Grande campus event into a practical day of dialogue for the community it serves, with free breakfast, free lunch and some livestreamed sessions built in for people who cannot attend in person.

The conference, set for Saturday, May 16, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the La Grande campus and is open without charge to students, faculty and staff. CEAD stands for Celebrate, Educate & Appreciate Diversity, and EOU is framing this year’s program around community, constructive dialogue, identity and lived experience, with a particular focus on rural settings that reflects the university’s role in Eastern Oregon.

Mika Morton, director of EOU’s Office of Strategic Equity Initiatives, said the conference is meant to create space for respectful conversation, shared learning and stronger connection across campus. That matters in Union County, where La Grande is the county seat and largest city and where EOU often functions as a regional gathering place as much as a college.

The keynote speaker will be Eliot Feenstra of Oregon’s Kitchen Table, whose work centers on bringing people together across different perspectives. Oregon’s Kitchen Table describes Feenstra as a long-time community organizer, facilitator, performer, teacher, poet and gardener. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has worked in rural southwestern Oregon and joined Oregon’s Kitchen Table as a project manager in August 2023.

EOU said the 2026 conference marks 15 years of CEAD, a milestone for an event the university has previously described as a signature effort to increase awareness of power, privilege, biases and stereotypes. Its Native American Program says CEAD helps students learn about diversity, equity and social justice while building leadership skills for campus and community life.

The conference arrives as EOU continues to lean into its identity as Oregon’s Rural University, a designation highlighted by the Oregon Encyclopedia. That history fits the setting: Union County’s population was 26,196 in the 2020 Census, and La Grande’s was about 13,026, a scale that gives a university-hosted event outsized reach in civic and educational life. EOU was established in 1929, and the Oregon Encyclopedia notes that the school has long drawn heavily from rural backgrounds while serving as an educational, cultural and economic engine for rural Oregon.

EOU’s 2024 president’s message said CEAD drew more than 100 participants, including 44 percent students, 45 percent faculty and staff and 11 percent community members. With a livestream, meals and a keynote built around listening and common ground, this year’s conference is designed to make those same conversations easier to enter and harder to ignore.