During 2011-12, more than 200 Notre Dame undergraduates are majoring or minoring in peace studies. They come to class and visit our offices, hoping to discern how to translate their intellectual curiosity and passion for women’s rights, or arms reduction, or nonviolent conflict resolution, or inter-religious collaboration, into a life-long vocational or career path.
Meanwhile, nearly 40 master’s students from around the world are at various stages of preparation for careers in professional peacebuilding: leading human rights or conflict transformation organizations, shaping public policies in their homelands, or engaging in conflict mediation at the grassroots level in war-torn societies.
At the same time, young historians, political scientists, social psychologists, theologians, and sociologists are conducting peace-related research for their doctoral dissertations. Soon our first class of peace studies PhDs will take their first faculty positions in universities and colleges, where they will educate and train the next generations of peace and justice professionals and scholars.
When they are not advising or teaching, the Kroc Institute’s two dozen core faculty and more than 50 Kroc-affiliated faculty fellows are writing books, publishing articles, and conducting interdisciplinary peace research and policy studies. Among their questions: How can we improve the effectiveness of peace accords? Battle terrorism through international law and economic sanctions? Illuminate the conditions that lead to mass violence? Bring together the best Muslim, Catholic, and secular thinkers in efforts to enhance peace, security, and human rights?
As always, we strive to enlarge the circle of the growing, worldwide company of strategic peacebuilders — not only by educating Notre Dame students, but also by reaching out and welcoming to the conversation multiple publics dedicated to the cause of peace. In this spirit, I invite you to become more familiar with Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute and to join us in building a more just and peaceful world.
R. Scott Appleby
Professor of History
John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute
