Campus Peace Centers
Building a Culture of Peace, One Campus at a Time
Campus Peace Centers The United Nations CSVGC (NY)
The Peace Pole Project
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25 October 2007
Students from Vassar College handed out programs as everyone hurried to take seats for the launch of the Campus Peace Centers project at UN headquarters on Thursday, 25 October 2007 at the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of the Week of Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns celebrating the United Nations 62nd anniversary. Deborah Moldow opened the event with a moment of silence and a shared prayer, "May Peace Prevail on Earth."
Campus Peace Centers is an innovative project to encourage university students working for the various aspects of a culture of peace to form local meeting centers, as well as an international on-line network highlighting UN campaigns and youth initiatives. Deborah Moldow of the World Peace Prayer Society and Dr. Neil Altman of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, have been spearheading the project with a Working Group from the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns-New York, a committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. The Campus Peace Centers initial web site at www.campuspeacecenters.net already sports an informal Advisory Council of educators from prestigious universities in North America.
Advisor Prof. Gordon Fellman, Chair of the Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Program at Brandeis University came from Massachusetts to present the Peace Room he established there as an example of a Campus Peace Center already in place and set to join the network. He said, "In the Peace Room, we are all equal; we sit on the floor." Advisors Ms. C. Janet Gerson and Mr. Tony B. Jenkins, Co-Directors of the Peace Education Center at Columbia University's Teachers College, discussed building learning communities to nurture social change and transformation.
Aaron Voldman, who serves as National College Director of the Student Peace Alliance while in his junior year at Brandeis University spoke about the importance of connecting young people with inspiring causes, such as the movement for creating a cabinet-level Department of Peace.
The United Nations was also well represented at the Launch. Ms. Yvonne Acosta, Chief of the Academic Partnerships Unit in the Academic Initiative Section, Outreach Division of the UN Dept. of Public Information discussed her work to coordinate all the ways the various UN departments and agencies work with universities. She sees many possibilities for collaboration in the future. Also on hand was Ms. Rochelle Roca Hachem, Programme Specialist for Culture at the UNESCO Office in New York, who spoke of the culture of peace initiative that came through UNESCO and then outlined a number of projects that she could see Campus Peace Centers working on with UNESCO.