UT PEACE EDUCATION SCHOLAR WINS FULBRIGHT GRANT TO COLOMBIA

By Christine Billau : Tuesday, September 4th, 2018

A peace education scholar at The University of Toledo is heading to Latin America to support the society-wide effort to realize a 2016 peace deal that ended a 52-year civil war in Colombia between the government and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or FARC, among other militants.

Dr. Dale Snauwaert, professor of educational theory and peace studies in the UT Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership, was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Award and is spending Sept. 4-18 at the Institute for Bioethics at the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana in Bogota to study and give lectures and workshops on moral theory, environmental ethics and peace education.

“It will take a generation or two to socially, economically and politically integrate generations of ex-militants into Colombian society,” Snauwaert said. “One of the keys to the success of the peace process, therefore, is peace education.”

The lectures and discussion forums are open to the public, including faculty and students at Pontifica Universidad Javeriana and government officials.

“At this critical stage in the Colombian peace process, an understanding of the philosophy and practice of justice and peace building among the citizenry is essential for its success,” Snauwaert said. “The project will open the institution to an ongoing dialogue regarding peace and justice as well as the recognition of the inclusion of peace and justice studies as a civic responsibility of the university.”

“This is an outstanding award, and Dale is certainly worthy of it. His work in peace education is well-known and respected,” Dr. Raymond Witte, dean of the UT Judith Herb College of Education, said. “A Fulbright recognition is at the highest level, and this speaks directly to the quality of Dale’s work as well as the support from the Judith Herb College of Education and the University at large.”

Peace studies is an interdisciplinary field of study and a learning process designed to develop the capacity of democratic citizens to critically understand and transform all forms of violence and the patterns of thought that justify them, and to envision and pursue a just and peaceful world.

“The primary elements of peace studies focus on the causes that give rise to and sustain violence, approaches to resolving violent conflict, and the articulation and defense of ethical and political principles and values that define the normative conditions of peace, including theories of justice, both ideal and non-ideal,” Snauwaert said.

UT offers an undergraduate minor in peace and justice studies and oversees the Betty A. Reardon Archives, which is housed in the University’s Canaday Center for Special Collections. The collection consists of Reardon’s extensive publications, unpublished manuscripts, curriculum, reports, scholarly presentations, and correspondence from the 1960s to the present about peace studies. The archives of the world-renowned champion of peace education and 2013 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize have been in the Canaday Center since 2009.