Theme

90th Annual Conference - October 3-4, 2025

How Do We Flourish in an Age of Tension and Uncertainty?

Cultivating Creativity, Intellect, and the Human Spirit

Hosted by Augustana University, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Overview

We invite attendees, regardless of religious background or affiliation, to the 90th Annual Conference of the Association of Lutheran College Faculties featuring keynote speaker, Rev. Dr. John Arthur Nunes. Currently serving as interim president of California Lutheran University, Dr. Nunes is a senior fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy.

We welcome faculty, staff, and their student collaborators from all disciplines and perspectives to propose papers or panel discussions related to this broad theme. Proposals are due August 15, 2025.

We have entered a new era in which the cultural foundation of higher education has become increasingly unstable. This rising volatility is leading all of us into uncharted territory, spawning new questions and dilemmas. In this time of division over fundamental assumptions about religion, civil society, education, and even facts and truth themselves, this conference explores ways in which our campuses, communities, and churches can find means of re-engaging our values toward community, mutual understanding, and respect.

Some examples include but are not limited to:

• Addressing sensitive topics in a polarized classroom

• Finding the human spirit in a technological landscape

• Stewarding the distinctive nature of Lutheran higher education.

• Embracing the arts as vocation

• Inculcating values beyond the economic imperative

• Examining our expectations of private education

• Fostering relationship and community among diverse students

• Finding agency in the midst of limited choices

• Nurturing the whole person through co-curricular programs/support services

• Teaching multiple perspectives in an era of entrenchment

• Understanding AI: Bane or blessing to learning?

• Navigating religious pluralism with faithfulness and generosity

• Designing inclusive pedagogical practices in the classroom

• Building a supportive community by teaching resilience in first-year courses

• Collaborating between sciences and other disciplines on climate change and creation care

• Promoting scientific thinking in the age of TikTok

• Encouraging thoughtful critical responses to misinformation

Keynote speaker

Rev. Dr. John Arthur Nunes

In May 2024, Dr. Nunes was appointed as the interim president of California Lutheran University. He previously served as president of Concordia College—New York. Dr. Nunes has served since 2020 on the Academic Leaders Task Force on Campus Free Expression at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Many public and private universities have adopted the task force’s recommendations about how to foster a campus culture of robust intellectual exchange during the current period of national polarization.

Nunes is a senior fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy and was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1991. He was also president and CEO of Lutheran World Relief and held an endowed professorship at Valparaiso University.

He is the author of five books, including Wittenberg Meets the World: Reimagining the Reformation from the Margins (2017), with Alberto Garcia; and Meant for More: In, With, and Under the Ordinary (2020).

Born in Montego Bay Jamaica and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Nunes holds degrees from Concordia College, Ann Arbor (BA), Concordia Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario (MDiv), and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (ThM and PhD). 

He and his wife, Monique, are the parents of six children and 13 grandchildren.

Getting around

Augustana University is located in the south central part of the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota — approximately 10 miles west of the Minnesota border. Centrally located, there are numerous lodging and dining options nearby.

2025 ALCF Committee

• Sharon Gray, President, Augustana University

• James Bond, Past President, California Lutheran University

• Mary Kay Johnston, Secretary, Concordia University Texas

• Mark Looker, Treasurer, Concordia University Ann Arbor

• Robert Hayes, Concordia University Chicago

• Paul Hillmer, Concordia University St. Paul