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Give Peace (studies) a chance

Max Brown
The Commuter

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Every two years since 1988, Peace Studies has taken students from LBCC to an international symposium on education for peace, justice, and human rights. The next symposium will be held at Leeuwarden, Netherlands in September of 2010.

The aim of the symposiums are to bring together college students and teachers from around the world to “learn about intercultural and international conflict and to explore strategies for peaceful resolution of conflicts.” According to Scott McAleer, students have never had to pay for the trips, thanks to the fund raising the group does.

Other than the symposium, the group does not have many constants. Each year they decide what issues or ideas they want to tackle, according to Doug Clark, director of the group. When the question “What is peace studies?” was asked, Clark responded, “Well what do we want it to be?” The focus of the group is to explore peaceful approaches to violence and war. They also try to understand why violence and war is taking place, and to look at the deeper meaning behind it.

Recently, the group has sponsored a speech given by Benji Lewis at LBCC. The group partnered with Veterans for Peace chapter 132 on this event. According to Clark, the Willamette Valley has a large number of groups that are working on peace studies. He says this gives the group a lot of opportunity to partner with them to sponsor presentations or a wide variety of other activities.

LBCC Peace Studies holds meetings every Thursday at 12:40 p.m. in Gallery B of SSH. Also they will be attending the Spring Fling Resource Fair on May 20, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Right now, the group is in the process of setting up a website, and other resources for discussion. To join the group or find more information about it, you can drop in during one of the meetings or visit the group at the resource fair. The group also has an e-mail address at Peace.Studies@linnbenton.edu.

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