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The Baker Institute at Juniata College to host Fourth Annual International Symposium
(Posted October 1, 2025)
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HUNTINGDON, Pa. — The Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College will host its fourth International Symposium, “Who Pays the Price? Resource Extraction and Environmental Inequity,” on October 6-7, 2025. Free and open to the public, this event takes place on the Juniata College campus at 1700 Moore Street, Huntingdon.
This year’s symposium gathers experts from around the world to examine the impacts of resource extraction in Central Pennsylvania’s Appalachian Mountains and internationally. Speakers and facilitators will engage with students and attendees to describe how community members have worked to reclaim and reimagine their local environments in response to historic and current extractive industries.
Local community panelists will be Elise Gerhart, an activist and herbalist local to Huntingdon County; Nick Miller, a farmer, activist, musician and Huntingdon, Pa., native; Eric Oliver, a mined land reforestation specialist with Green Forests Work; and Greg Williams, a volunteer with Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light. Other invited speakers include Jody DiPerna, a writer and award-winning journalist who has chronicled life in Pittsburgh at the intersection of Appalachia and the Rust Belt; and Jolene McIlwain, author and instructor of literary theory. The symposium will culminate with an international session that will include participation from Elias T. Ayuk, Ph.D., an independent researcher, consultant, and former director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa; Jaybee Garganera, an environmentalist, activist, and national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (Alliance to Stop Mining) in the Philippines; and Belén Noroña, Ph.D., an assistant professor within the Geography Department, affiliate researcher of the Institute for Energy and Environment, and Rock Ethics Institute Fellow at the Pennsylvania State University.
For more information and an event schedule, please visit https://www.juniata.edu/academics/baker-institute/special-events.php.
Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.