The 2021 Notre Dame Student Peace Conference Committee has announced this year’s conference theme, “Beyond the Surface: Moving the Needle on Global Peace.” Due to the ongoing global pandemic, this year’s conference will take place virtually April 15-17, 2021.
The Notre Dame Student Peace Conference is an annual event organized by students for students. The conference is free and open to students from any college or university who want to engage in dialogue on important issues related to peacebuilding, social justice, and conflict transformation.
In their description of the theme, conference organizers wrote, “Our world today is plagued by an overwhelming number of issues: climate change, racial injustice, civil unrest, gender-based violence, health crises, and many more. In recent months, we have witnessed a great awakening of hearts and minds across the globe in response to many of these issues. This awakening has allowed people of all ages in all places to voice the injustices they see and do what they can to create change.”
In light of this awakening, conference organizers have opened a call for proposals that invites undergraduate and graduate students to wrestle with how they can “move the needle” and advance strategic peacebuilding efforts in their own context or area of expertise. Students can propose innovative presentations or sessions of all types: research papers; analyses of experiential learning; panel discussions; artwork or media projects; or other project formats. Proposals can highlight both practice and research.
The committee welcomes proposals that engage with, but are not limited to, topics such as structural violence, coalition building, international diplomacy, conflict transformation, climate change, racial justice, ethnic conflict, media, policy reform, nonviolent resistance, nuclear disarmament, and economic injustice.
Interested students should visit the Conference website to review submission details and access the submission form.
Proposals must be submitted by January 22, 2021, and proposals submitted earlier may be given preference in the review process.