The Peace Abbey

Ok, so you're a college student and you're trying to figure out something that's worth spending a couple of years of your life studying. You're independently minded, not afraid to think outside “the box,” and nothing on your school's list of majors really reaches out and grabs you. Meanwhile, your country's been at war for the entire time you've been in high school, and you're more than a little sick of listening to how it's normal to go around killing people in other countries. As a matter of fact, you're convinced there's a better way to do things, and actually kind of wondering if there isn't some way to learn about it, and who knows, maybe even contribute to the eventual solution. Well, there is, and you can have it as your major. It's called peace studies.

What's that you say? Your school doesn't offer any kind of peace studies program? Don't worry about it - you can major in it anyway, and to illustrate how I'll use actual events at the University of Michigan.

Before I go any further I suppose I may as well introduce myself. I grew up in Holliston, Massachusetts - maybe 10 minutes away from the Peace Abbey - and graduated from Holliston High School in 1997. Not sure of what I wanted to study, I chose to take some time off, and by 2001, was in the midst of finishing my freshman year at a place called Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. I was still undecided in terms of a major, but had begun to lean a little toward a program they had, called Peace and Conflict Studies. I had been intrigued by the ideas of peace and nonviolence since the age of 15, and when I learned, at Wayne State, that you could actually have that as your major, I got pretty excited. In addition, I began to understand that what a student majors in these days dictates less and less what they'll be doing once they get out, with many graduate and professional schools even preferring a varied, interdisciplinary undergraduate education. I therefore became resistant to the classic line of reasoning: “What on earth do you plan on doing with that?”

Taking all this into account, and convinced I had nothing to lose, I was contemplating peace studies more than ever. But before I was really forced to make up my mind I had transferred to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, about 40 miles away. Geographically speaking the two schools shared much in common, but in terms of academics they were worlds apart. According to US News and World Report, Wayne State is a Tier 4 national university. Michigan, on the other hand, is a Tier 1 school, and widely considered one of the best public universities around, situated in one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised to learn that they didn't have anything even remotely comparable to the peace studies program at the school from where I had just come.

By that time, though, my mind was all but made up as to what I wanted to study. I was still flexible as to how exactly it would get done, and if I had been offered even like a Global Studies major, or maybe International Relations, I could have been convinced pretty easily to declare right there on the spot. But they had nothing of the sort. What could I do? I wasn't about to pay all that money to be educated in a field that wasn't even my second or third choice. I figured I may as well shoot for my first.

Meanwhile, I had gotten turned on to this handy little program within the liberal arts college at Michigan that allows you to create your own major if you can prove that your needs can't be adequately met by any of the choices that already exist. They call it an “Individualized Concentration Program” and it was pretty much perfect for what I wanted to do. I wrote up a proposal, got a pair of faculty members on board as advisors, and watched it pass with flying colors, commended for the work I'd evidently put in.

I was elated. It was true that I had put a lot of work in - basically going through all the classes that Michigan had, and hand-picking those ones I felt were most appropriate for a major I was calling “The Philosophy and Practice of Nonviolence.” And through all the faculty members I talked to, whether it was to get more information on a class that they taught, or simply to get their opinion on what should go into a good peace studies major, I got the sense that I was trying to do something that people were excited about, and clearly thought should exist. I kept that in the back of my mind while completing my major, and made sure to hang on to all the contacts that I had made. Finally, during my last semester, I decided I may as well go out guns blazing - as a senior project, I wanted to try and start a peace studies major.

So I began learning more about the field of peace studies. I did a survey of existing programs around the U.S. and around the world, seeing what kinds of requirements they had, as well as the approach they took in dealing with the subject matter. Foremost among influential existing programs would have to have been the Peace and Conflict Studies major at the University of California - Berkeley. Around for over 20 years, it showcased how a large public university could support an endeavor of the size and scope I had in mind. It made me kind of wish I had gone to Berkeley, of course, but it also made it very clear that if something like that could work there, then there was really no reason why it couldn't work at Michigan as well.

I also researched the prior attempts that people had made at teaching conflict resolution, peace studies, nonviolence, and social justice at my university. I found out there was an extremely rich history, stretching all the way back to the 1960s, where the University of Michigan became the first to hold a teach-in on the Vietnam War, thanks in part to people like economics professor Kenneth Boulding. I found out that one of the most important groups from back then - Students for a Democratic Society - was started by students at my school. I even found out about an Introduction to Peace Studies class that was taught for a few years in the mid 1980s. It was surprising and extremely encouraging to know that I wasn't necessarily trying to re-invent the wheel - a precedent had very clearly already been set. It seemed like people might have just been waiting for someone to push hard enough that this line of thinking would be set in motion again, only this time, rolling under its own weight. This is what I had to do next.

In an effort to prove its potential viability, I designed a very quick survey and set up one evening in a high-traffic area, trying to gauge whether or not a peace studies major would be able to attract support. The response, of course, was overwhelming. Students, I felt, had been wanting something like this for a very long time. Then I organized a meeting, invited sympathetic students, faculty, and community members, and presented my proposal for a new major in Nonviolence and Peace Studies. Among those present were the student government president, one of the folks who started SDS back in the '60s, a part-time professor who used to teach a class on nonviolent political movements, my project's faculty advisor…. Ok, to be quite honest, the turnout wasn't exactly as strong as I had hoped for, but those who did attend were key. I needed to try and light a fire under really just a few important people because I knew that any further influence I was personally to have would, in the future, be extremely limited.

I moved away a few days later, and turned the project over to those I deemed most likely to continue the momentum I had tried hard to build up. There were two articles in the Michigan Daily over the coming weeks, as I had made certain to invite the student press. It seemed at first as if things had worked. I got people talking about things, and through the work I did on what a potential major might look like, made it very easy for someone to take over for me, and try to get it pushed through the University's proper channels. Almost two years went by, though, and I didn't hear a thing. I didn't stay in the closest contact with people there, but from what I understood, interest on the part of the key players had more or less dried up. A phone call one day, however, changed everything. It was the student paper once again, asking me if I was the one who had tried to get a peace studies program going a couple of years back. I said yes I was, and was quickly informed that it had just been approved as a brand new academic minor! So I picked my jaw back up off the ground and finished the interview, ecstatic that something I had done had actually made a difference.

This past fall I returned to Ann Arbor, and met up with my former faculty advisor, Helen Fox - now director of the Michigan's new Peace and Social Justice minor. She told me the story of how a few dedicated students - among them chiefly the student government president who came to my meeting - did the legwork of getting the program approved by the University. With some modifications to my original proposal - many of which were to be expected, as classes offered are rarely ever static from year to year - starting in January, 2008 students were able to elect the brand new minor. Helen told me there are currently 30 students who have declared, and that she gets emails every week from people who are interested in signing up. The popularity of her class Nonviolence in Action has skyrocketed, offered now as a core class for the minor. In short, the program is going better than even I ever thought it would - and I'm what you might call an idealist.

On a personal note, it's really gratifying to know that something you did during your undergraduate years is going to be appreciated by the student body long after you're gone. I'll be the first to admit that it didn't come easy. I ended up doing a pretty decent amount of extra work in order to first just develop a curriculum for myself, long before even thinking about putting together a program for other students. And this work did take time - time that, had there already been this type of thing in place, I could have spent learning about the actual issues at hand. But all that said, the process itself turned out to be extremely fulfilling and ended up providing valuable lessons on how people tend to view the emerging field of peace studies, how things get done (or not done) on a bureaucratic level at a large public university, and ultimately what goes into a getting a good education. It gave me an opportunity to develop personal relationships with various faculty members, which is helpful in too many ways to list. One of my favorite things to do back when I was planning my own course of studies was to schedule meetings with professors, sit down with them, and basically try pick their brains on what in their minds would constitute a well-balanced curriculum centered around nonviolence and peace. I'd inevitably come out of these meetings with new ideas, not to mention the names of one or two other sympathetic faculty members, sometimes more. This in turn would lead to even more meetings, culminating in my gaining a strong sense of just how widespread the interest was among the University community for the type of program I had in mind. And when I look back on it all, I must say, I don't regret anything for a second. My school not having a peace studies program, for me, ended up truly being a blessing in disguise.

It's been said for centuries that if you want peace then you should prepare for war. I think we've all seen how well that works. It's always made more sense to me that if you want peace then you should prepare for peace, and I think slowly but surely this line of reasoning is beginning to seep into our educational system. It's still not a sure thing, however, and there's absolutely nothing that says we can't help speed up the process a bit. If your school doesn't have a peace studies program, and anything I've been describing sounds like something you're interested in… well, don't just sit there - do something about it! More than likely there's a way for it to happen, and who knows what your efforts might begin to unleash. The bottom line is: don't let “the man” tell you what you can and can't study. One of the most unexpected things I learned in college is that peace studies can start with one person, and that person could very well be you.

If I can help you out in any way, just send me an email (willtravers@gmail.com) and I'll do all I can. Finally, here are some resources that I hope might either be of some interest or of some use. Best of luck, and peace!

Here are the three articles from the University of Michigan student paper that were written about the project. The first two are from 2005, after I had just held the final meeting, and the third is from 2007, when the project finally began to bear fruit.

10/12/2005 - “Nonviolence may become a minor: RC prof and student work to establish a program for peace studies”
10/20/05 - “Better than a peace pipe: Nonviolence minor isn't just flower power”
10/25/2007 - “Long effort results in new minors: New minors available in chem, Peace and Social Justice”

Click here for the official website describing what the minor's all about, as well as the potential classes that could make it up.

I have a lot of additional links to include, once this finds a home on the web.

NEPSA is an affiliation of teachers, students, activists, and researchers, involved in and dedicated to peace and nonviolence.

NEPSA sponsors forums and distributes materials, information and syllabi.

NEPSA is housed at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA.

NEPSA cooperates with the Peace & Justice Studies Association (PJSA), the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (BRC), as well as other regional, national, and international organizations building cultures of peace.

NEPSA Officers:
Gordon Fellman, Co-Chair
Brandeis University

Abbie Jenks Greenfield, Co-Chair
Greenfield Community College

Eric Matez, Secretary
Odyssey School

Dot Walsh, Treasurer
The Peace Abbey