At one end of the Pennsylvania State Capitol grounds in Harrisburg, our host city for this year’s conference, resides a statue dedicated in 2020. 2020 was not only a pivotal year in American history because of the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and a hotly contested presidential election, it also marked the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 15th Amendment, which granted Black men the right to vote, and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which enfranchised women. Featuring four African American activists discussing the legislation that would change the nation’s trajectory, this statue, aptly titled “A Gathering at the Crossroads,” was designed to commemorate these pivotal amendments and the people who worked tirelessly to bring them to fruition. It also, however, is situated on the site of Harrisburg’s old Eighth Ward, serving as a memorial to the diverse neighborhood that was demolished in the early twentieth century to construct Capitol Park. Commissioned as an anchor piece for the Commonwealth Monument Project, a movement dedicated to reimagining what Pennsylvania’s historical monuments should look like moving forward, “A Gathering at the Crossroads” is itself a crossroads piece, speaking to the challenges of our time and of eras long past.

At this year’s conference, we gather at yet another pivotal moment in our nation’s history in a place that, for much of its existence, has been a city of crossroads. Harrisburg rests at an intersection of many of the country’s first highways and railroads, built on the trade and transportation routes forged by this continent’s first nations. As the site of Pennsylvania’s state capital since 1812, it has borne witness to many of this country’s most important debates and hosted some of its most important voices. It is situated not all that far from the battlefields of Gettysburg, where two armies clashed over the nation’s future. Another historical marker, focusing on the importance of Harrisburg’s railroads during the Civil War era describes Harrisburg as the “Crossroads of the Union,” a place where people and ideas intersected and went their separate ways as the United States grew around them.

As this last point suggests, it should be remembered that crossroads, for as much as they are marked as places of divergence and strife (a sentiment we hear every time someone utters the phrase “We find ourselves at a dangerous crossroads”), can also be viewed as places of convergence, where many voices and visions can come together and create conversation, change, and new ways forward. At this moment, we find ourselves in just such a place, with the opportunity to positively impact the world around us. As engaged citizens, we find ourselves at a crossroads every single day, where the choices we make about what we study, what we write about, what we discuss, and what we do have consequences and impact. “At each point in our lives, we are at a crossroads,” the former molecular biologist, now Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard once noted. “We are the fruit of our past and we are the architects of our future.”

At NRHC 2025, we invite you to gather with us at the crossroads as you share your research and ideas and engage in meaningful conversations with your fellow conference participants. We invite you to submit proposals that speak to the crossroads in our culture, considering how we can better our home communities, universities, Honors Programs, and, on a grander scale, the world through our work. However, all proposals are welcome regardless of topic. When our time together closes, we encourage you to travel back to your home institutions and strive to be the architects of your future, aware of the past and pursuing action to create a better and more just commonwealth. Above all, we hope that #NRHC2025 and the ideas, presentations, and conversations we share in Harrisburg will foster a shared path of inquiry and demonstrate the importance of civic engagement in honors education.