Envisioning California Conference

The Envisioning California Conference, founded by the Center for California Studies in 1989, assembles Californians with particular insight into the bits and pieces of California's diversity of histories, cultures and philosophies, and the consequences of the diversity.  Our discussions attempt to analyze successes and failures in efforts to bring Californians together and to keep differences from breeding discord. We question what defines California, who Californians are, and where California is going.  We reach into the broad vistas of the California experience, from politics, ethnicity, and history to the arts, education and the environment.

In 2003, the Center formed a partnership with the Center for Southern California Studies at California State University, Northridge to take the conference to southern California in odd numbered years. 

Past Envisioning California Conferences include:

• Sustainability and the California Dream, 2009
• California Imagined: The Arts of the Golden State, 2008
• Immigration in California: Conflict, Resolution & Transformation, 2007
• How Well Are We Preparing Our Young People for Life After High School?, 2006
• Retrofitting California: Rethinking Policy & Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future, 2005
• Refounding California: Envisioning the Future of State Governance, 2004
• Dynamic Diversity: Expanding the California Dream, 2003
• Envisioning a State of Learning: Moving California’s Master Plan for Higher Education into the 21st Century, 2002
• Our Year of Disconnect: The Power & Politics of Power in California, 2001
• E-Democracy and Initiatives: The Future of the California Republic, 2000
• Paths to California’s 21st Century, 1999
• California's Taxing Evolution: The Legacy of Prop. 13, 1998
• The House We Live In, 1997
• People, Landscapes and Visions, 1996
• Rumors of Peace: California's Defense Era and Beyond, 1995
• Bright Lights, Mean Streets: California as City, 1994
• Reassembling California, 1993
• Dancing on the Brink, 1992
• Charting Uncommon Ground, 1991
• The Diversity of Peoples and Regions, 1990
• Peoples, Land, Policies, 1989