In its first year, the conference aimed to bring together educators, community members and service-learning professionals to improve and promote service-learning initiatives.

Thursday's keynote speaker was Dr. Shelley Billig, vice president of RMC Research. Billig serves as principal investigator of several national studies and as associate director of a regional technical assistance center. She specializes in many areas including educational reform and service-learning.

Following Dr. Billig's address, attendees began a set of breakout sessions. These sessions took on a classroom feel as presenters assigned tasks like "getting to know your neighbor"- a meet-- and--greet event in which attendees had to learn something unique about a previously unknown session "neighbor".

Thursday's breakout sessions included "Transforming Schools through Service-Learning:One Elementary School's Story" with Dr. Lori Simon, principal of Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary School in St. Paul, Minn., and "How to Foster Ideas that Change the World" with Dr. James Toole, president of Compass Institute and a teaching and Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota.

Billig, Toole, Simon, John Hamerlinck, and Pam Proulx-Curry gathered on Thursday afternoon for a panel presentation. Dinner was served on Thursday evening following a speech by Duluth Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Keith Dixon.

Keynote speaker Dr. Andrew Furco welcomed attendees on Friday morning as he discussed the building blocks of education. Furco oversees the advancement and institutionalization of public engagement across the five campuses of the University of Minnesota.

Two more breakout sessions kept attendees busy on Friday. These breakout sessions included "The Business of Humanity" with Dr. Bruce Kibler, UW-Superior professor of management and Daryl Yankee, executive director of Western Lake Superior Habitat for Humanity, and "Taking Service-Learning Projects to Scale Effectively" with Brenda Butterfield, University of Minnesota-Duluth Instructor of Psychology.

After a series of brief round table presentations, the conference concluded on mid-afternoon Friday.

In a post-conference survey, more than 92 percent of conference attendees rated the keynote speakers, meals, number of sessions, location, and format all as excellent or good. Eighty-nine percent of attendees also rated the topics covered, registration process and cost as excellent or good.