Peace & Conflict Studies Courses

Peace and Conflict Studies is a program that brings together a number of academic disciplines that focus on conflict as one of their organizing concepts. Because of its ubiquity and significance in human life, the study of the process and resolution of conflict is increasingly claiming a central place in the study of development in general and peaceful change in particular.

Course Catalog

Courses in Peace and Conflict Studies

Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies

This course surveys the process of conflict, including conflict management, from a multidisciplinary perspective. As such, it deals with the causes, dynamics, types, levels, management functions and outcomes of conflict. The implementation of the course involves, in part, case-study simulations and occasional guest lecturers from various disciplines on campus. This course is a prerequisite for upper-level courses in conflict studies and required for the conflict studies major and minor.

First-Year Seminar

A seminar focused on writing, advising, the first-year experience, and specific topics within Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution. Open only to first-year students.

Topics in Peace and Conflict Studies

An examination of selected topics dealing with conflict or peace studies. Courses, while interdisciplinary in nature, will generally be taught from a peace and conflict studies perspective.

Applied Conflict Analysis and Resolution

This course is the PACS major's applied course, and is also a W course. It serves as a bridge between the introductory course in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program (PACS 100) and the Program's senior capstone experience (PACS 430) for majors, but all students are welcome. The course includes a full mediation training and students leave with applied analytic skills, research skills, a variety of practical conflict engagement and transformation skills, and as trained mediators. The class also includes practice doing substantive research and conflict analysis, in preparation for upper-level research, and applying conflict resolution and transformation processes to conflicts and social problems. Much of the writing models real-life formats such as summary reports and project proposals. The overall focus is on practical, real-world skills including understanding and responding to conflict, and communicating and sharing those skills and insights, both in written and presentation forms.

Topics in Peace and Conflict Studies

An examination of selected topics dealing with conflict or peace studies. Courses, while interdisciplinary in nature, will generally be taught from a peace and conflict studies perspective.

Senior Seminar: The Study and Analysis of Peace and Conflict

This course fulfills the senior experience requirement for the Peace and Conflict Studies major. It is a capstone course in which students bring together their diverse course experiences into a meaningful summation of the study and analysis of conflict. The course involves a core of common readings on theories of conflict analysis, discussions and the writing and presentation of a senior research paper relevant to the seminar.