Theme: One of Ours

The Sigma Tau Delta convention returns to Pittsburgh in 2025 and features exciting keynote speakers, our Common Reader When My Brother Was an Aztec, by Natalie Diaz, and Willa Cather as the Spotlight Author. Cather spent over ten years living and working in Pittsburgh, but she has additional ties to many Sigma Tau Delta regions. Cather’s connection to various places influenced our adoption of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel’s title for our 2025 Convention theme: One of Ours.

So what does it mean to be “one of ours?” This phrase evokes belonging and community and membership, all of which reflect the values and mission of Sigma Tau Delta.

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Spotlight Author: Willa Cather

In an essay on the Great War’s impact on Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, Josephine O’Brien Schaefer mentions that, for Cather, “stories have to be told, songs to be sung, poems to be written before a country’s spirit can be kindled.” The fact that Cather lived in so many places across the US—from Virginia to Nebraska, from Pittsburgh to New York City, and from Santa Fe back to Nebraska—secures her position as a writer of place. The 2025 Sigma Tau Delta Convention marks a return to Pittsburgh as its host city. Not surprisingly, conversations about our Spotlight Author kept circling back to Willa Cather, not only because of her time as a resident but also because so many different regions in our Society might “claim” her.

Cather’s work also inspired our selection of the convention theme One of Ours.

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Sigma Tau Delta Centennial

The Convention Co-Chairs chose Willa Cather as an author to spotlight this year. We encourage chapters to celebrate Cather’s work in the locations where she lived, in the places where you live, and in her various novels, short stories, and other writings that we can access. But this year our celebration of Sigma Tau Delta’s Centennial also continues, culminating at the 2025 Pittsburgh Convention. The 2025 Convention will be a good time to reflect on the changes in literature, culture, and higher education over these decades and to consider the many ways that the theme One of Ours can apply to each of us.