The SCOPES (Small-Campus Observatories as Promoters of Education in Science) Conference was held on the UMN Morris campus in June 2025, funded by a grant from Heising-Simons Foundation, a family foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. The Heising-Simons Foundation grant supported travel and accommodations for the conference, which included a total of 43 participants from 19 different colleges across 11 states.
UMN Morris Associate Professor of Physics Sylke Boyd organized the three-day conference to share what she and her students learned from a months-long effort to refurbish and expand the 25-year old campus astronomical observatory. The observatory dome is a significant feature of the architecture of the Science building and houses a 16-inch LX200 Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope, common to small campus observatories.
During that project, Boyd and her students relied on an array of campus, alumni, and community colleagues as well as an international online community of telescope experts to provide technical expertise as well as moral support. The SCOPES Conference was designed to build on and share the collective wisdom of that community.
The conference included presentations on archeoastronomy, technical dome problems, science outreach ideas, and student projects in exoplanet hunts. Additionally, students and faculty shared their research in a poster session followed by an outdoor telescope show-and-tell.
The conference was successful in creating an opportunity to share experiences in technology, software, management, and building intercultural competence in science relevant for outreach and teaching in astronomy, allowing undergraduate students to shine, and learn from each other.
The response from participants was overwhelmingly positive with plans to host a second SCOPES conference.