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Current Projects
Building Peace on the Ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Since June, 2001, the Peace Studies Program has participated as part of a
team of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) that are helping to
facilitate an unofficial dialogue between leaders of the warring factions in the DRC. Although Congo is lost in today's headlines, it is estimated that the conflict has caused over 2.5 million deaths since 1998. Thus far, the RPCV team's work was credited by the parties with helping to build confidence and trust and move the peace process forward.
Maple Dale/Indian Hill School District
The Peace Studies Program is working to facilitate better relations between the School Board and Teachers Association on the Maple Dale/Indian Hill School district at a time when restrictive state legislation and financial cutbacks make running a school district extremely difficult. The first session of the process was
"extremely successful" (according to the joint statement of the parties) at starting on the path to a better working relationship between the sides.
Research on Integrated Approaches to Building Sustainable Peace and Development
Practitioners, academics, and funders have been advocating the
need for greater collaboration in the field among traditionally distinct
disciplines (e.g. development, diplomacy, humanitarian relief, conflict
resolution, human rights, environment, etc.) that are involved in building sustainable peace and development (inter-field collaboration). Further, one of the recent findings of the Reflecting on Peace Practices project (RPP) is that despite success at the programmatic level, initiatives to build sustainable peace and development have not, by and large, resulted in peace at the systemic level (peace writ large). The purpose of this research effort is to document the potential benefits of inter-field collaboration on building peace at the systemic level (peace writ large), as well as the factors that promote or inhibit effective inter-field collaboration.
BA in Global Security
The Peace Studies Program is actively involved with the development of an innovative undergraduate, pre-professional degree in Global Security. The Global Security curriculum development initiative will cross the traditional divisional boundaries of the university and facilitate linkages between UWM's College of Health Sciences, School of Nursing, School of Social Welfare, School of Information Studies, and College of Letters & Science. The Global Security program will be a cross-campus initiative to re-think traditional approaches to security studies in light of changing global realities. It will serve as a replicable model for interdisciplinary collaboration with potential impact on international relations and security studies programs at institutions across the US. Building on the core, lower division courses required of all Global Studies students, the UWM team will focus on designing the upper division courses, overseas study and internship/service learning programs for the Global Security track. The team will also examine ways in which global issues and overseas experiences can be better integrated into single-discipline and other interdisciplinary majors across UWM and ways in which students from traditionally-underrepresented groups can be encouraged to enroll.
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