By Allison M. Strickland
The recent creation of the North American Peacebuilders Program, one of the first exchange programs of its kind in the world, is giving students the opportunity to study international conflict resolution and work on negotiating skills. Last fall, U of L welcomed the first groups of students in the program and this spring, two U of L students are studying in Mexico and two are in Canada.
Funded with a $203,544 grant from the U.S. Department of Educations’ Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education program, six universities in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. are linked together, giving students the opportunity to specialize in the theory and practice of conflict resolution during their undergraduate studies.
The idea for the program came from discussions led by U of L’s Muhammad Ali Institute for Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution, in conjunction with the U of L International Center and the departments of Political Science and Modern Languages. U of L then partnered with universities who had significant conflict resolution resources, including the University of Manitoba and l’Université de Montreal in Canada, Universidad de Colima and Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosí in Mexico, and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
The program “positions U of L at the forefront of undergraduate teaching in the exciting new field of conflict resolution,” said Michael Fowler, associate professor of Political Science and founding director of the Ali Institute. “The Ali Institute has compiled a list of a broad array of courses that focus on some aspect of conflict resolution. Hence, the program has brought Arts and Sciences to broaden and marshall its academic resources in peace-building in a manner that has never been done before.”
Fowler said the program benefits not only the student participants but the university as a whole.
“The program puts our faculty in close contact with experts in Mexico and Canada,” he said. “We have already seen how each university learns from the scholarship, community initiatives, teaching methods and materials of its partners.
“Further, the program brings to U of L an excellent group of foreign students each year who go out into our Louisville community, working at local conflict resolution organizations, thus contributing to the university’s goal of becoming involved in positive ways in the metropolitan area,” he said.
Fowler said that Canadian, Mexican and U.S. communities face many social problems that are often further complicated by cross-cultural misunderstandings and the lack of a single shared North American language.
“In the universities in each of our countries, conflict studies and peace studies are rapidly growing academic fields of great interest to many students and faculty,” Fowler said. “As our North American societies become more economically and socially intertwined through growing interdependence and the forces of globalization, as reflected in the North American Free Trade Agreement, an important challenge for universities is to foster an ongoing, cross-national dialogue about North American disputes and their possible solutions.”
Students must compete for a spot in the program. The Modern Languages Department assesses language skills, and then a committee of faculty members reviews the applications, conducts interviews and selects four Peacebuilders, who are announced in the fall.
The students selected to participate in the program for the 2005-06 school year are Chris Cunningham and Rachel Davis, who will travel to Canada, and William White and David Golemboski, who will travel to Mexico.
“Any Arts and Sciences student who is a U.S. citizen is eligible to participate,” said Fowler. “The current class of Peacebuilders includes majors in Biology, Spanish, Political Science and Theatre Arts.”
In addition to their regular classes, program participants take a course in conflict resolution and perform an internship with a community organization that deals with some aspect of conflict resolution.
“The Coping with Conflict class is a regular political science offering; it had about 20 students last fall: three of them were foreign students in the North American Peacebuilders program from Mexican and Canadian universities; four of them were outgoing U of L students who are currently starting their semesters abroad; the remainder were regular U of L students,” said Fowler.
“Whether they are part of the program or not, students are welcome to consult the list of courses and learn what opportunities are available to work peace-building and conflict resolution classes into their own courses of study,” Fowler said.
When students travel abroad, they take courses relevant to their particular interests in conflict resolution and participate in an abroad internship with a conflict resolution organization. Travel and living expenses are covered by federal grant money.
“The need to learn about a foreign society, including gaining the language proficiency necessary to succeed in a Spanish-speaking or French-speaking university and in a foreign internship, and the ensuing travel and study abroad will expose our students to experiences that we expect will transform their college years, perhaps preparing them for graduate study and eventual careers in this important new field,” said Fowler.
Brian Labore, a senior Biology major and participant in the Peacebuilders program who is currently studying abroad at the University of Manitoba, is doing his internship at Manitoba Eco-Network.
Over the course of the semester, he will be assisting with their caucus on water issues in Manitoba and a forum for Children’s Environmental Health.
“I think the opportunity to study in this program will prove very valuable once I leave college, since I plan on researching urban ecology, in which culture and politics factor heavily,” Labore said. “Getting experience from the environmentalist/conflict resolution side of things now … will probably prove valuable to such future endeavors.”
Jamie Izlar, a senior Political Science major and participant in the Peacebuilders program, is currently studying in Colima, Mexico.
“My long-term goal is to study international politics and hopefully continue my career in international law. Subsequently, this program fits right into my curriculum of life.”
Izlar said that the North American Conflict class she took last semester was one of the best classes she has ever taken at U of L.
“Not only did each student leave the class with a deep appreciation of conflict resolution, but the class also prepared me for life,” she said.
“I think many times we are so inundated with news from our nation that we don’t realize what is happening with our neighbors to the north and south,” said Elizabeth Walter, a senior Spanish major studying at San Luis Potosí. “To concentrate only on the conflicts that we face in the U.S. is to overlook problems and possible resolutions to problems that our neighbors also deal with.”
“Studying conflict in another country has opened my eyes and made me realize that international relations and peace-building are two steps that need to be taken to make the world a better place,” she said.
For more information visit http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/FIPSE/.
