For years, it has been easy to find law schools and nursing schools in North America, but not so easy to locate schools specializing in the study of conflict and peacebuilding.

The site, located at peacecolleges.com, has received an average of 15 daily hits since its launching in 2013. Schools listed in the guide were given the opportunity to update their listings in the summer of 2015.

The site is hosted by 91����Ƶ, with support from the (CJP).

“Peacecolleges.com is always a work in progress,” says CJP Executive Director . “The site is an important resource for those investigating the possibility of working in peace and justice studies, and we’re pleased to offer this opportunity to all colleges and universities that foster the training and education of future peacebuilders.”

does not list “security studies” programs that “focus disproportionately on conflict analysis and do not take an explicit peace stance.” It also does not include some programs in criminal justice and mediation, “because of their narrower focus on the legal system.”

The website was developed in 2013 by former 91����Ƶ editor-in-chief , a graduate of CJP and founder of the center’s publication. She noted that major college guides highlighted “colleges that offered niche programs like ones for horseback riders or for a ‘semester at sea,’ but would ignore or incorrectly report on peace study programs.”

As an academic discipline, peace studies is a relatively young field, according to the website. “Interdisciplinary in its earliest stage of development, peace studies initially borrowed heavily from the social sciences to analyze and understand the nature and roots of conflict,” says the guide. “It is now recognized as a field in its own right, with theorists and academicians who began their careers and remain in the field of conflict studies and practice.”

More than half of the 40 programs listed on the site are housed in relatively small, private institutions. This likely reflects the long-held interest in peace work by certain religious peoples who founded colleges now offering peace studies, including Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren members, and a segment of Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The orientation of the programs is highly variable, however, with some placing great emphasis on practical skills and experiential learning, and others mainly focusing on the study of the philosophy of nonviolence.

is searchable by name of institution, geographical region, type of institution (public, private, small, medium or large), and type of degree offered.

How can CJP expand its impact in the world?

These simple, yet profound questions asked by e more than two years ago eventually led to the production of the.

This special edition explores the impact of initiatives that have emerged from 91����Ƶ’s .

The Paynes provided the funds for 91����Ƶ communications staff to travel around the world to learn about the successes and struggles of educational initiatives run by CJP-linked peacebuilders. Magazine founder and editor , who has since retired, was the primary writer, contributing most of the content after two mammoth journeys to three continents in the fall and winter of 2014-2015.

The ripple effects of these peacebuilding initiatives are nothing short of amazing, writes CJP Executive Director in .

“And yet many of them wrestle with the same issues we face at CJP. How can peacebuilding organizations be financially viable for the long term, while remaining accessible to all who wish to expand their peacebuilding knowledge and skills? How do these centers continue to engage with their alumni in ways that are mutually beneficial? The peacebuilding field – and the funders and advocates who want it to succeed – have much to learn from these stories.”

The featured initiatives are:

1. – founded January 1996 – headquartered in London, serving churches throughout the United Kingdom;
2. – fall of 1996 – headquartered in Mozambique, mainly serving that country, yet also hosting participants from other Portuguese-speaking countries;
3. – 1998 – headquartered in Accra, Ghana, with staff working in 15 African countries;
4. – 1999-‘00 –headquartered in Hydrabad, India, but serving all of India, with a special focus on ethnic minority regions in the far northeast of India;
5. – 2000 – headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa (originally in Kitwe, Zambia), serving all of Africa, but particularly southern and eastern;
6. – 2000 – headquartered in Davao, Philippines, attracting participants widely, but especially serving southeast Asia;
7. The – summer of 2001 (ceased operation after 2013 summer session, due to decision by university administrators) – Washington D.C.;
8. – 2005 – headquartered in Peshawar, Pakistan, serving all of Pakistan, with a particular focus on the northwest region where violent conflicts have a regional impact extending into Afghanistan;
9. – 2007 – based in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina (has not offered intensive trainings since 2012, but hopes are for resumption in 2016), serving post-Yugoslavia populations emerging from violent conflict;
10. – 2007 – headquartered in Suva, Fiji, but with wide focus on all South Pacific islands;

11. – 2008 (a sister group, the Korea Peacebuilding Institute, emerged in 2012) – headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, but with summer peacebuilding sessions that rotate among South Korea, Japan, China, and Mongolia;
12. – 2009 – in Winnipeg, Canada, attracting participants widely, but especially serving western Canada.

Additional articles feature lessons learned and implemented from of peacebuilding institute leaders and a thematic exploration of gleaned from the featured institutes.

The issues profiles many CJP alumni, whose professional information can be found on CJP’s .

Palwasha L. Kakar told the audience of about 100 that her religious faith underpins all her efforts to empower women across the Islamic world. “In the field, it’s really faith that allows us to overcome obstacles,” she said in her May 6 speech, facilitated in part by the at 91����Ƶ.

Tailoring her message to the professional peacebuilders in her audience, Kakar outlined two projects under her purview as senior program officer for Religion and Peacebuilding at the : (1) mapping the religious sector of Libya and (2) promoting women’s rights within the Islamic constitutional framework of Afghanistan.

For the pacifist Christians present, however, the glimpse she provided of her background may have been even more interesting. Kakar’s undergraduate degree came from a sister Mennonite institution, Bethel College in Kansas.

Kakar rushed through highlights of her personal story to focus on the situations in Libya and Afghanistan. The following fleshed-out version of her history was culled from three Bethel College news articles, all pertaining to her 2014 selection as Bethel College’s Young Alumnus. The extracts are republished courtesy of Bethel’s writer, Melanie Zuercher.  — Bonnie Price Lofton

Daughter of culturally mixed marriage

Kakar’s mother grew up Mennonite in the Midwest. “When she married my father, she agreed to raise the children Muslim,” Kakar said. “When she was pregnant with me, the first child, she went to study Islam with a Muslim women’s group, and she decided to convert to Islam.”

Kakar was born in Seattle and spent her first 11 years there.

“When I was growing up, my mother was in medical school and my father was working on a PhD, and my Mennonite grandparents came to take care of me. My grandmother would take me to Friday prayers [at the mosque] and stay to listen to the sermon. On Sunday, she would take me to church, so I grew up also hearing Mennonite hymns.”

In 1989, the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after a 10-year occupation. “My parents were eager to go back to Afghanistan. However, because of the ongoing war and conflict, we only got as far as Peshawar, where I met my extended family in a refugee camp.

“I quickly noticed that of all the girl cousins, I was the only one going to school. Their families, especially my uncles, wouldn’t let them go. I would get into conversations with my uncles – which pushed me to understand their very traditional mentality.

Changing through faith-based conversations

“Through this kind of discussion, I found what could really convince them was that, in Islam, it is not only girls’ right, it’s their obligation, to be educated. Along with my parents, I was able to convince my uncles to allow their daughters to go to school.

“Now one of my cousins is a teacher, one is in medical school and others are continuing their education. I realized the importance of talking at the level people are at, and how important faith is in helping people think differently.

“We hear from the IMF and the World Bank how women’s education is connected to the economic strength and health of a country. In places like Afghanistan and Libya, it’s important to get this information out, but also to frame it in the context of religion.”

When Kakar came to Bethel, she was leaving a “very conservative” Muslim context and coming to the Mennonite one of her [maternal] grandparents, Ruth and Erwen Graber.

“In both, faith was very important,” Kakar said. “It was the lens through which to view the world.”

The lens of conflict resolution

She continued, “At Bethel, I took classes in conflict resolution and mediation with a goal of educating other societies, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, on women’s rights, and of understanding gender and Islam from a perspective that would help expand women’s rights in Muslim countries and societies.”

Kakar has always felt strongly that “it was important to work carefully from within the context, the framework – not push an ideology [such as ‘global human rights’] from outside.”

Many non-governmental organizations shied away from any kind of faith-based development work, she said, but her experience told her that in conservative Islamic societies, the only agenda that would work was a religious one.

At the Asia Foundation, with which she spent most of the last decade in a variety of roles, she found one NGO willing to say, “It’s OK to work in a religious framework, it’s good to work with religious leaders,” she said.

Among the many things she did was organize tours for religious leaders from Afghanistan to see how leaders in other Islamic societies – such as Turkey, Malaysia and India – worked on community issues, especially related to gender.

“Women and men went on separate tours,” she said, “but when they came back, we asked them to reflect on their experience together. It was an experiment” – one that became as important a lesson to the men about the gifts of educated, articulate women as the tours themselves.

“All these bearded men were nodding their heads, saying, ‘Yes, we agree with you, sister.’ There was suddenly no Us and Them. They all had the same cause. That was amazing to see.”

Community-based discussions

Another project Kakar worked on was organizing community discussion groups, which she based upon faith discussions she’s experienced at Bethel.

She took that idea about “safe space” into creating a place where men, in particular – the religious leaders and community elders – could experience “an internal process led by faith.”

The discussions in the community groups centered on women’s rights within Islam, Kakar said, “illustrated with personal experiences, stories and case studies. These became places where some things began to be resolved, where a woman’s rights were protected” – for example, land inheritance or the choice not to marry.

“Religious leaders told us that when we began the groups, they were hesitant to talk about domestic violence and other issues openly within the community. Hearing the experiences of leaders when they did speak out helped other leaders gain the courage to speak that they hadn’t had before.”

The community discussion groups would not have succeeded, Kakar said, “without the acceptance of it being all right to approach situations from a faith basis, [a value] I attribute to my Bethel education and to the Asia Foundation being open to this approach.”

New openness to faith-based work

As other NGOs observed the success of the groups, they began asking for the material to use in their own work.

“Now the tide is changing,” Kakar said. “There is much more openness to using a faith-based approach and to work with religious leaders to change attitudes toward women and their rights.”

Kakar did her undergraduate work in global studies, and Bible and religion, graduating from Bethel in 1999. Her first job was director of the Newton Area Peace Center, which is now Peace Connections.

After earning a certificate in intensive Arabic-language study at Zarka (Jordan) Private University, Kakar began graduate studies at Harvard University, completing a master’s degree in 2004 in theological studies, focused on gender, religion and politics.

Kakar is fluent in Pashto and English, proficient in Dari, and has basic knowledge of Urdu and Arabic. She has written extensively on women’s rights in Afghanistan and Iran.

At that time, we needed to raise $1.6 million in new commitments to reach our goal of $7 million. Thanks to 465 wonderful 91����Ƶ “diehard fans” comprised of alumni, donor friends and foundations, the goal was surpassed by this past December 31 – one year earlier than planned. This allowed for intensive renovations of our science labs (occupying the east section of Suter) to begin this spring. These will continue in three stages through August 2015.

With over $500,000 committed beyond the original campaign goal, it didn’t take long for our campaign steering committee, board members, and key donors to encourage us to “hit the ball out of the park” and plan for a second phase of fundraising so that the entire Suter Science Center would be upgraded to 21^st century standards.

Thus, here we are, in “extra innings” or phase II of a $3.3 million fundraising campaign to transform the west section of Suter. Thankfully, nearly $800,000 of this goal has already been given or committed by 91����Ƶ fans! Our goal now, and it’s ambitious, is to secure gifts and multi-year commitments for the balance of this project by June 30, 2015, so that renovation of Suter West can proceed seamlessly in the fall/winter of 2015.

As donors to the first phase know well, one of the major costs of the lab upgrade was the complete overhaul of Suter’s HVAC system, which had been limping along for a number of years. The renovation plan for Suter West (both lower and upper levels) naturally calls for the complete upgrade of HVAC; new sprinkler system; expansion of the Park Road entrance; and improvements to the D. Ralph Hostetter Museum of Natural Science, the Discovery Room (former planetarium), classrooms and offices.

Significant improvements are also planned for the iconic lecture hall SC106, including new seating, lighting and upgraded technology. Thanks to the energetic efforts of the Student Government Association, students hosted a live auction this past April featuring a variety of donated items from alumni and artifacts from the science center. The auction generated $21,000 to support the eventual renovation of SC106.

While our campaign “team” remains upbeat about the prospects for achieving a successful outcome to phase II of the Suter Science Campaign, we are mindful that in fundraising, as in baseball, “extra innings” can drag on and take a toll on the players involved.

To that end we are inviting 91����Ƶ alumni and friends to “step up to the plate” – as they have so faithfully done in the past – and contribute their share of “singles,” “doubles,” “triples” and a home run here and there. If there’s a “grand slam” contribution waiting to be launched, that would be fine too!

For more information about the phase II renovation plans for the Suter Science Center, including naming opportunities, please visit emu.edu/science-campaign or contact me, Kirk Shisler, vice president for advancement at kirk.shisler@emu.edu or at 540-432-4499.

This has changed, with the advent of “.” Found at , the guide is the only free, up-to-date listing of 40 American and Canadian colleges and universities that offer bachelor’s degrees – i.e., majors – in which the study of peace is oriented toward understanding the psychological and socio-economic roots of harmful conflict.

The site includes graduate programs, such as the master’s and doctoral programs at the , if they are housed in an institution with an undergraduate program.

“Almost all of the included programs emphasize reducing violence and addressing injustice as part of the peacebuilding process,” says the website, which credits two graduates of ’s peace programs, Andrew Jenner (bachelor’s degree in ) and (), for the information on the site.

does not list “security studies” programs that “focus disproportionately on conflict analysis and do not take an explicit peace stance.” It also does not include some programs in criminal justice and mediation, “because of their narrower focus on the legal system.”

College guides do injustice to peace studies

“I began dreaming of this website when I became irritated that the major college guides would highlight colleges that offered niche programs like ones for horseback riders or for a ‘semester at sea,’ but would ignore or incorrectly report on peace study programs,” said Lofton, who also holds a BA in English from and a DLitt from . “And, of course, military programs at colleges have always gotten lots of attention.”

Jenner, who has an MFA in writing from , and Lofton also produce the content for , issued biannually by 91����Ƶ’s .

In late May 2013, the 40 schools in The College Guide to Peace Study Programs received a preview of the listings, so that they could be updated as necessary and otherwise checked for accuracy, said Lofton. “But the guide will always be a work in progress,” she added.

Dale Bryan, assistant director of peace and justice studies at , expressed congratulations and gratitude for “the impressive effort” behind the website. Harry Murray, director of ’s peace and justice studies program in Rochester, N.Y., called it “a great resource.” Michael K. Duffy, who directs the peace studies major at , agreed, “It’s a very helpful compendium.”

Educational consultant wrote that he wants to make community college students more aware of where they can earn a bachelor’s degree in the peacebuilding field. To that end, he began promoting on his in early September. Until recently, Smith was a senior administrator at the in Washington, where he managed programs for colleges and universities.

Peace studies now an academic discipline in its own right

As an academic discipline, peace studies is a relatively young field, according to the website. “Interdisciplinary in its earliest stage of development, peace studies initially borrowed heavily from the social sciences to analyze and understand the nature and roots of conflict,” says the guide. “It is now recognized as a field in its own right, with theorists and academicians who began their careers and remain in the field of conflict studies and practice.”

More than half of the 40 programs listed on the site are housed in relatively small, private institutions. This likely reflects the long-held interest in peace work by certain religious peoples who founded colleges now offering peace studies, including Mennonites, Quakers, Church of the Brethren members, and a segment of Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The orientation of the programs seems highly variable, however, with some placing great emphasis on practical skills and experiential learning, and others mainly focusing on the study of the philosophy of nonviolence.

is searchable by name of institution, geographical region, type of institution (public, private, small, medium or large), and type of degree offered.

Read more…

91����Ƶ’s Crossroads magazine won a major award this year from the southeast district of the .

Competing against dozens of magazines produced by larger institutions, Crossroads received a “special merit award” in the category of “magazine publishing improvement.”

The other winners in this category were magazines produced in 2007 by Furman University in South Carolina, Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, the University of Alabama, the University of Miami, Brenau University in Georgia and Barry University in Florida.

The southeast CASE district consists of 565 universities, secondary schools and other institutions involved in higher education from Washington D.C. to Florida. The magazine awards ceremony will be held at the CASE annual regional conference in Atlanta, Ga., on Feb. 19.

Crossroads is published quarterly and distributed to 16,000 alumni, students, parents and friends of the university.

The award confirms informal feedback sent by alumni, such as this Jan. 20 2008 e-mail to the editor from Daniel Lehman, a 1972 graduate who is now professor of English at Ashland University in Ohio: “I have really enjoyed Crossroads in the past year. You are doing an outstanding job (as one journalist to another), and I love the way that 91����Ƶ is highlighting its distinctive mission as well as the peace and justice programs.”

Betsy Robertson, magazine editor at Auburn University in Alabama and one of the CASE contest organizers, said Crossroads emerged as a winner because “the judges were impressed with the change in editorial direction to focus on current issues and provocative topics rather than the usual mundane assortment of event snapshots, fundraising updates and ‘successful alumni’ profiles.”

Robertson added that the results were especially notable “for a small staff.”

In last year

The event will open at 11 a.m. with multi-media presentations and music.

The day will continue with a Middle Eastern lunch at 12:30 p.m. Several of the CTP student-cooks will be observing Ramadan and thus deserve special thanks for their hospitable efforts to offer guests food that they themselves cannot eat until after sundown.

There is no charge for the meal, but donations are welcome. Persons planning to attend should call Bonnie Price Lofton at 432-4234 to help determine how much food should be prepared.

After lunch, CTP students will tell their stories on conflict and peacebuilding in informal group settings between 2-4 p.m.

Visitors are invited to remain on campus following the open house to see a provocative dramatic production on the theme of war, “Bury the Dead” by Irwin Shaw, performed by 91����Ƶ’s theater department at 7:30 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium. Tickets will be on sale at the door.

Ms. Lofton noted that a special celebration is being planned for June 3-5, 2005 to mark the 10th anniverary of the start of the MA in Conflict Transformation Program.