The conference will be held at the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 14–17. The conference fees are $500 for students and $750 for regular attendees. This year includes 15 first-time faculty members, 42 new courses (for a total of 121) and online registration for all hotel reservations. There will be a special screening of the award-winning documentary Poverty, Inc.
Acton University offers another strong lineup of keynote speakers:
Magatte Wade: a passionate adventurer and idealistic entrepreneur. Born in Senegal and educated in Germany and France, she left for the United States to begin a career as soon as she could. She lived and worked in Silicon Valley at the height of the dot-com boom and started a beverage company that obtained national distribution at leading natural food retailers and distributors.
Vernon L. Smith: the 2002 Nobel Prize winner in economic sciences for his groundbreaking work in experimental economics. He has the George L. Argyros Chair in Finance and Economics and is a research scholar in the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University. Smith has served as the president of the International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics since 1997.
William B. Allen: an emeritus professor of political philosophy in the Department of Political Science and emeritus dean, James Madison College, at Michigan State University. Currently he serves as Veritas Fund Senior Fellow in the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University.
Rev. Robert Sirico: the president and cofounder of the Acton Institute and pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His writings on religious, political, economic and social matters are published in a variety of journals, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the London Financial Times, the Washington Times, the Detroit News and National Review.
