The University of Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies will celebrate its 20th anniversary with several events beginning this weekend, including an academic conference on peacebuilding, the inauguration of a professorship in peace studies, and a Mass for peace.
At 11 a.m. Saturday (Nov. 4) in the Annenberg Auditorium of the Snite Museum, there will be a panel discussion on “The Role of Religion in Peacebuilding.” Panelists include R. Scott Appleby, Professor of History, John M. Regan Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute; and John Paul Lederach and A. Rashied Omar, both fellows in the Kroc Institute.
A Mass for peace will be celebrated 10 a.m. Sunday (Nov. 5) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., will preside.
At 12:30p.m. Sunday in the Snite Museum of Art, there will be a “Crossing Borders for Peace” reception.
At 5p.m. Sunday (Nov. 5) in the auditorium of the Hesburgh Center for International Peace Studies, Peter Wallensteen, Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research Professor of Peace Studies at Notre Dame, will speak on “Strategic Peacebuilding: Issues and Actors.” Wallensteen is the author of “International Sanctions: Between Wars and Words”; “Understanding Conflict Resolution: Peace, War, and the Global System”; and “Making Targeted Sanctions Effective.” He also has led studies on the means of preventing genocide, international strategies for democracy, and the United Nation’s post-conflict peacebuilding capacity.
Wallensteen’s lecture will be the keynote address for a two-day conferenceentitled “Strategic Peacebuilding: The State of the Art.” The conference is intended to define, explore and develop the concept of strategic peacebuilding, which has always been central to the Kroc Institute’s research, education, outreach and policy programs.
Participants in the Strategic Peacebuilding conference will include Jan Eliasson, past president of the United Nations General Assembly and former foreign minister of Sweden; Oana-Cristina Popa, the Romanian ambassador to Croatia; and Raimo Vyrynen, former director of the Kroc Institute and now president of the Academy of Finland.
All of these events are free and open to the public.
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on October 30, 2006.