Today marks the opening of the much-anticipated Acton University 2009, a four-day conference exploring the intellectual foundations of a free society, held annually in downtown Grand Rapids.

In these troubled economic times, this conference is more relevant and valuable than ever, featuring a diverse schedule of over 50 courses dealing with economics, Christian theology and social thought, philosophy, and business. Almost 400 participants from nearly 50 countries will learn from a world-class faculty, engage in rigorous discussion, and deeply reflect on these issues of liberty and morality which are so important to the future of society.

For those who are unable to attend the conference conference, munications staff here at Acton will be doing our best to deliver the conference to you in a variety of ways. For starters, you can click here check out the ActonU Feed, live from Twitter, where many Acton University participants will be twittering about their experiences at the conference. You can also Subscribe to this feed to receive the AU updates in your RSS reader. And if you have something to twitter about AU, don’t forget to use the #actonu hashtag so that you are included in the larger discussion!

We plan to post some of the great audio from the Acton University lectures that will happen later this week, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you’re eager for AU audio you can check out our archive from last year.

In addition, Al Kresta, host of Ave Maria Radio’s flagship national production Kresta in the Afternoon, will once again be broadcasting live from AU from Wednesday, June 17 through Friday, June 19. Listen live on the Ave Maria site from 3 – 6 PM (EST) as Al Kresta interviews AU speakers and attendees.

We also hope that it will be an active week for AU in the blogosphere, and we’ll do our best to bring you highlights with some blogger roundups. Fr. Z from What Does the Prayer Really Say? will be with us once again, as well as many other avid bloggers. (If you are liveblogging from the event, let us know in ments!)

Check back for updates on the PowerBlog as the week continues. It’s sure to be a busy week with lots of great food for thought.