Coastal Carolina University will host its fifth Celebration of Inquiry, a university-wide academic conference designed to unite learning communities in cross-disciplinary discussion of a common theme, on Feb.14 to 16, 2007. All the events are free and open to the public.

"Think Globally, Act Locally: Guiding Our Changing World" is the theme of the 2007 conference. The conference's keynote speaker is poet Natasha Trethewey, an associate professor of creative writing at Emory University. Trethewey is the author of "Native Guard" and two other collections of poetry, "Domestic Work" and "Bellocq's Ophelia."

The keynote address is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Wheelwright Auditorium. The event is free, but tickets are required and are available at the Wheelwright Box Office, 349-2502. Trethewey will also participate in a question-and-answer "Poetry Session" on Thursday, Feb. 15 in Wall Auditorium from 10 to 11:15 a.m.

Other speakers include Doug Kirks, director of public relations for the Fair Trade Organization Ten Thousand Villages, and Maria del Carmen González, coordinator of International Education Programs for the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in New York.

Kirks' session provides participants with the opportunity to interact with Ten Thousand Villages whose foundation is "thinking globally" (by adopting a policy that fair trade is of benefit to the whole world), "acting locally" (by providing a fair income to artisans in the developing world). The other plenary speaker, González, has designed, developed and implemented collaborative educational partnerships and publications with national and international governments, cultural institutions and educational institutions.

For more information on the Celebration of Inquiry, visit http://www.coastal.edu/inquiry/2007 or contact Charmaine Tomczyk, conference director, at 349-2403. This conference is sponsored by CCU's Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts' "The Words to Say It" visiting writers series, Burroughs Foundation, Inc. and Coastal's Office of Student Activities and Leadership.