The Conference on World Affairs (CWA) is an annual conference, open to the public, featuring panel discussions among experts in international affairs and other areas, hosted since 1948 by the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, USA. History The Conference was founded in 1948 by Howard Higman, a professor of sociology at the university. He ran the conference until he retired, shortly before his death in 1995. The Conference resumed in 1996 and was directed for 16 years by Professor James Palmer, currently by John Griffin. In mid-March 2020, with ever-increasing public health concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, CWA announced the cancellation of the April event - the 72nd conference. It left open the possibility of rescheduling the conference if the situation improved sufficiently, which never came to fruition. Content and panelists The conference started out as a forum on international affairs, but under Higman, it had morphed into a discussion on a multitude of topics. The core of the conference consists of panel discussions, usually with 3–6 panelists, on topics such as music, art, literature, environmental activism, business, science, journalism, diplomacy, technology, spirituality, the film industry, pop culture, visual arts, politics, medicine, and human rights. Half of a panel typically consists of experts on that panel's subject, and half with people having no professional connection to the topic, who offer fresh perspectives and insight. Only a one-line topic for the panel is announced two or three weeks before the conference. The panelists are given no other direction or guidance about what they should say. Each year the conference hosts over 100 panelists, and conducts over 200 sessions. All sessions are free and open to the public and are held in rooms varying in capacity according to anticipated popularity, from 50 seats to 2000. The total annual attendance of all the events at the 62nd Conference on World Affairs (in April, 2010) was estimated to be over 92,000. Numerous distinguished people have served as panelists over the years, including Patch Adams, Margot Adler, Betty Dodson, Buckminster Fuller, Temple Grandin, Werner Herzog, Adam Hochschild, Arianna Huffington, Andy Ihnatko, Molly Ivins, Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthaummer, Paul Krugman, George McGovern, William Nack, Ralph Nader, Howard Nemerov, Yitzhak Rabin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Seth Shostak, Julia Sweeney, Studs Terkel, and Ted Turner. The CWA is governed by a board selected by both community volunteers and by the university administration, and includes volunteers, faculty members, and