Coastal Carolina University will host its fourth Celebration of Inquiry, a university-wide academic conference designed to unite learning communities in cross-disciplinary discussion of a common theme, on Feb.16 to 18, 2005. All the events are free and open to the public.

“Memory, Place, Identity: Behind us, Before us, Within us” is the theme of the 2005 conference. The conference’s keynote speaker is feature ethicist Rushworth Kidder, founder and president of the Institute for Global Ethics, a think tank headquartered in Camden, Maine with offices in London and Ontario. Kidder is also the author of several books including “How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living.”

The keynote address is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in Wheelwright Auditorium. Kidder will also participate in a roundtable discussion on Feb. 17 about “The Public Square: A Dialogue on Ethical Decision-Making.” The public is invited to participate and present sessions. The deadline for conference proposals is Nov. 1.

Other speakers include Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina. He was a news reporter and bureau chief in the U.S. and abroad for many years. He has worked as a newscaster for CNN and ABC. Bierbauer will moderate “the Public Square” and participate in a mock press conference.

William W. Falk, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, will also be a featured plenary speaker. He has written several books including an oral history/ethnography, “Rooted in Place: Family and Belonging in a Southern Black Community” (Rutgers University Press, 2004). His ongoing projects explore issues related to the return migration of African Americans to the South and the rise of gated communities in the Lowcountry.

Also scheduled to speak during the conference is Brad Land, South Carolina author of “Goat,” a national bestseller that deals with his relationship with his brother and two unrelated episodes of violence he endured, including a hazing incident at Clemson University. Land studied creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he received his M.F.A., and Western Michigan University, where he served as nonfiction editor of Third Coast, a literary magazine.

For more information on the Celebration of Inquiry, visit http://www.coastal.edu/inquiry/2005 or contact Charmaine Tomczyk, conference director, at 843-349-2403. This conference is funded in part by Coastal’s Jackson Family Center for Ethics and Values and the S.C. Humanities Council’s We the People grant initiative, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.