On January 20, the second International Symposium on Sustainable Development was held. For 2017, the theme was "Human Migration & Sustainable Development." The day started with an introduction by Dr. Cynthia Buckley from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She outlined the
history of human migration and how it has been studied, and briefly analyzed
the impact that climate change will have on traditional migration patterns. According
to Dr. Buckley, climate change impacts both sending and receiving countries as
a majority of the world’s population lives in coastal areas. She concluded by
describing three major topics that need to be considered: categorization of
migrants, time, and sustainability.