Peace and Conflict Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program offered collaboratively by Conrad Grebel University College (Grebel) and the University of Waterloo which aims to explore why conflict and violence occur, and to understand how conflict can be transformed by "collaborative decision-making" to accomplish constructive ends.
The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (CPA) is a dynamic space on the University of Waterloo campus, home to peace-oriented innovators, and established organizations from the region's vibrant peacebuilding field with the common goal of advancing peace collaboratively and creatively.
PACS alumna in the CPA | PACS students' artwork in the CPA | MCC and the CPA | New PACS course
PACS alumna joined Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement Epp Peace Incubator with SheLeads start-up
In the final year of her Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) degree, Cassie Myers founded SheLeads, a start up focused on creating assessment software for women-focused organizations to measure participant growth and program impact. A little over a year later, in September 2018, SheLeads joined the Epp Peace Incubator program in the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (CPA). The Incubator program offers peace-related initiatives access to space, funding, and mentorship to further their goals and advance peace.
When she came to the University of Waterloo for her undergrad degree, Cassie had no intention of completing a degree in PACS. “When I came into university I wasn’t sure what I could do with PACS that was tangible,” Cassie explained. But after completing several co-op terms at tech start-ups, Cassie found that “you can apply a PACS lens to any situation, come up with solutions, and become very entrepreneurial.”
Using the skills that she learned from her PACS degree, and with the opportunities available to her through the Centre for Peace Advancement, Cassie is working to “provide new and innovative solutions for the not-for-profit space."
PACS students’ art displayed in Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement Grebel Gallery
Students used a wide array of mediums to explore a diversity of topics, demonstrating the PACS program’s inventive and well-rounded approach to peace education. PACS encourages students to engage with peace education in non-traditional ways—this Grebel Gallery exhibit exemplifies engaging through artistic expression. As Rachel Reist from the PACS department stated,
“Arts can touch you in a way that words can’t. It’s hard to convey the depth of knowledge in an essay that you can convey in art. By having an option for students to do arts-based assignments, it allows them to come to the classroom in their full self, and it allows the receiver of their work to access their work in a different way.”
Peace scholar John Paul Lederach posits that building peace is a creative act – as much an art as a skill – as it requires imagining a world that does not yet exist amidst an in-depth understanding of that world’s current shortcomings. In this exhibit, PACS students were able to display their “moral imaginations”, a term coined by Lederach, through the CPA’s Grebel Gallery.
Mennonite Central Committee and Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement formalized partnership
In December 2018, Conrad Grebel University College (Grebel) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) formalized their partnership to advance peace through the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (CPA).
The CPA is home to peace-oriented innovators and established organizations from Waterloo region’s vibrant peacebuilding ecosystem. Over the past four years, the CPA has enabled Grebel and MCC to partner through, consultations, conferences, gallery exhibits, and more. The CPA now identifies MCC as a Core Collaborator, a category which includes organizations, Grebel faculty, and research fellows that advance peace through collaborative research projects, community engagement opportunities, and connections with students at Grebel and the University of Waterloo.
Many PACS and MPACS students have completed internships through various MCC programs. As Grebel President Marcus Shantz said, “Grebel and MCC share common roots within a tradition of peacebuilding, and we both have a mandate to nurture a new generation of peacebuilders.”
New PACS course Peacebuilding and Social Innovation offered in Winter 2019 term
Integrated into the course is a global challenge called Map the System, an initiative of the University of Oxford. Map the System is an opportunity to think differently about a social or environmental issue by understanding the problem and its wider context, rather than attempting to solve it. Students taking Social Innovation and Peacebuilding are participating in Map the System as a part of the course.
PACS alumna in the CPA | PACS students' artwork in the CPA | MCC and the CPA | New PACS course