Organizers of the 9th Student Organic Seed Symposium (SOSS) have opened registration for their event to be held July 30 – August 2, 2020, at West Virginia University in Morgantown. The theme of this year’s annual symposium is “Small Seeds, Big Impact” and will include farm tours, lectures, structured and informal discussion, hands on activities, and demonstration plots of participants’ breeding and seed work. The gathering aims to build a growing community of graduate students, faculty members, famers, and seed professionals working in organic and sustainable seed systems.
We’re excited to see the new mentorship component of this year’s symposium! Historically, SOSS has been limited to graduate students and speakers selected by the student-led planning committee. Because SOSS is unique among organic seed gatherings in its focus on student support and professional development, non-student SOSP members are invited to attend SOSS as “mentors.” The 2020 event welcomes non-student seed professionals to participate as mentors in relation to the students, who are the core audience of the symposium.
A message from SOSS organizers in light of the COVID-19 pandemic:
We hope to be able to hold SOSS this summer, but understand that it may no be possible if conditions haven’t improved by then. We will be evaluating this decision in a month [April], in hopes that a path forward will be clearer.
In light of this update, we are changing the SOSS registration form so that no one is required to pay at this time. We request, if you’d like to attend SOSS, that you go ahead and fill out the registration form now. We understand that the future is uncertain and plans may change, but it will help us gauge interest in the symposium and help us plan more accurately.
We will update you by email and via our website when we have made a final decision about SOSS.
Space is limited to 75 participants for this year’s retreat-style symposium. Questions or comments? Contact the organizers at symposium@organicseedsociety.org.
