INDIANAPOLIS — When Ruth Hill was hired as associate director of the Indianapolis Peace House, there was no house.

Hill helped acquire one, and in the process used the conflict transformation skills she studied at the Kroc Institute. She convinced neighbors in a historic district that filling an old mansion with college students would not result in couches on the front porch and beer parties out back.

“They were concerned we’d be a frat house,” Hill said of people who resisted the necessary change of zoning to allow the college residential program. “It took us some time, but eventually we were warmly welcomed by everyone.”

Hill received her M.A. in peace studies in June 2003. She was hired six months later to help launch the Peace House program, a joint effort of three Indiana colleges: Earlham, Goshen and Manchester. It is open to undergraduates from any school who want to study peace and justice issues in an urban setting. They can attend for one semester, or for a summer session. Students take classes, work 20 hours weekly at community service internships, and learn to live communally.

After finding office space in a church complex on the Old Northside, the Peace House team scoured the neighborhood for an apartment building or house. They found a Tudor-style house just down the block. Built in the 1880s, it came with high windows, dark woodwork and a statuary lion guarding the entrance. It has nine bedrooms, six baths and — thanks to the home’s recent service as a gentleman’s club — a commercially equipped kitchen.

“It’s just an enormous house,” said Hill. “If these walls could talk …”

Money to buy and maintain Peace House came from the Lilly Endowment. It is part of a $14.3 million grant used to expand peace studies programs at the three colleges.

For the Indianapolis program to succeed, it must get enough students to be self-sustaining. Hill is optimistic. “We’ve had interest from students all across the U.S., some of them international students.”

The program can accommodate up to 20 students. Four were recruited for the first semester, five for the second semester. Fourteen students signed up for the 2005 nine-week summer course.

Group living is one of the biggest challenges, and benefits, of the program, according to the first Peace House occupants.

“Living with another white Mennonite, a Latino Catholic, an African Methodist and an African-American Muslim has forever changed how I view diversity,” Abigail Nafziger wrote in an evaluation. “It isn’t all about rainbow signs and loving other cultures. It is also about the nitty-gritty of how you ask someone to help clean up the dishes, how you decide what to buy with your groceries, how you decide what movie to watch or how to cook your food.”

Hill can relate to that. A native of Northern Ireland, she had to adjust to different perspectives at the Kroc Institute, where graduate students from around the world share an apartment complex also dubbed Peace House. Her roommate, Mica Barreto-Soares, was from East Timor.

“It was interesting to see how different ideas of time and punctuality manifested themselves — this was in things like when we would have meetings, or just a decision about what was a good time to eat dinner,” she said. “The best bonding times happened over food and music.”

She is grateful to her classmates for broadening her world view.

“We had some tough conversations, even heated conversations on occasion, but I always really appreciated them.”

Indianapolis Peace House students come from many academic disciplines, including computer science, biology, history and journalism. There are even some peace studies majors, Hill said with a smile. “We take the stance that you can be a peacemaker no matter what your profession will be.”

When Hill was an undergraduate at England’s Cambridge University, she thought she wanted to be a corporate lawyer. After getting some work experience, she decided that practicing law was not for her. So she pursued her interest in how athletes relate to each other — something she experienced as a competitive swimmer in Northern Ireland, long torn by ethnic conflict.

“My home team mixed Protestants and Catholics. Most of the athletes didn’t join paramilitary groups, even though most everyone in their neighborhoods was doing that.”

She observed the same cooperation in Japan, where she worked for the World Cup soccer competition. The Japanese and Koreans set aside historic differences, working together so that the games would be a success, Hill said. “It was a platform from which to build person-to-person ties, and better relationships at the governmental and diplomatic levels.”

After that experience, Hill looked around for a graduate program that dealt in conflict resolution. That led her to Notre Dame’s peace studies program. After she earned her master’s degree, friends called her attention to the Indianapolis job. Erv Boschmann, executive director of Peace House, is glad they did. Praising Hill’s commitment to peace and her administrative skill, he described her as “super-organized” and sensitive to the needs of students, he said. “Ruth has maturity beyond her age.”

While she was at the Kroc Institute, Hill’s fiancé, Jason Prince, began work on his law degree at Notre Dame. He graduated with the class of 2005. The couple will be married in August, then move to Jacksonville, Florida, where Prince will be a federal court clerk.

So, now that Peace House is up and running, Hill is leaving for other challenges. “I hope to keep working in the same field, possibly moving into immigration and refugee assistance work,” she said.

She’ll be taking new insights and experience to her next job.

“I’ve learned a lot from the staff, faculty and students of Peace House as we have worked together to develop the program. I’ve learned the importance of team work and have come to particularly appreciate the value of collaborating with other non-profit organizations, agencies and colleges that have similar missions,” she said. “It takes a lot to put a program together, but it has been more than worth the challenge.”

For more information about the Indianapolis Peace House see www.plowsharesproject.org

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