The two-day conference, titled “Peace, Prosperity, and the Pursuit of Paradise,” will take place on the MU campus and feature addresses from Ustadah Tahera Ahmad and Dr. Jonathan Brown.

The event, titled “Building Better Community: An eat and greet to encourage trust between residents and officers,” seeks to establish trust between the police and citizens in an informal setting. It is being co-sponsored by the Bias-Free Columbia Coalition and will occur at 6 p.m. Friday, April 27.

Brick Johnstone of the MU School of Health Professions authored a study suggesting that feelings of spirituality and other religious emotions are not isolated in one portion of the brain. Johnstone’s study, “Right parietal lobe ‘selflessness’ as the neuropsychological basis of spiritual transcendence,” was published online in the International Journal of the Psychology of Religion in January.

The study, titled “Missing Voices: A study of religious voices in Mainstream Media reports about LGBT equality,” examines more than 300 news sources over three years and shows a reliance on religious sources that have official policies opposing equality for alternative lifestyles. The project was headed by CORP Executive Director Debra Mason, who was assisted by Cathy Ellen Rosenholz, a Communications Ph.D. candidate at MU.