Full Description

The Environment, Peace and Justice minor meets a number of different goals, responding to students’ interests and the growing need to prepare them with the conceptual and theoretical foundations and applied skills to address challenges to both peace and the environment in tandem.

Challenges to both peace and the environment are often deeply interrelated, with one impacting the other and feeding back. For example, where environmental degradation unevenly impacts already-marginalized communities and becomes a source of conflict, or when the breakdown of peace due to historical or protracted injustice impacts the environment and our ability to protect it in nonviolent ways. Globally, justice is a well-recognized pillar of both sustainable development and sustainable peace, emphasizing that these challenges need to be met in integrated ways.

The program emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach by drawing on relevant courses offered through different departments to offer a minor that can complement a range of majors.

Admission Requirements

Admission to a minor is open to students declared in a bachelor’s degree, the A.A.B. or A.A.S. degree or the A.T.S. degree (not Individualized Program major). Students declared only in the A.A. or A.S. degree or the A.T.S. degree in Individualized Program may not declare a minor. Students may not pursue a minor and a major in the same discipline.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

1. Engage with interdisciplinary and critical theory, concepts and case studies to understand a variety of issues and underlying challenges to protecting the environment, peace and justice.
2. Demonstrate knowledge through the ability to connect, analyze and communicate a wide range of social justice issues and challenges with the environment and peace.
3. Identify or propose peaceful or nonviolent approaches that comprehensively address environmental problems and social and ecological injustices.

• Delivery:
  • In person
• Location:
  • Kent Campus

Full Description

The Bachelor of Arts degree in Peace and Conflict Studies prepares students for careers or graduate study in the field of conflict management, peace studies and dispute resolution. This major gives students a solid background in managing conflicts in constructive, not destructive, ways. Students learn skills that are not only useful in a variety of workplace settings, but in everyday life and relationships as well.

Program areas of focus include mediation, negotiation, environmental conflict resolution, international conflict resolution, workplace conflict management, nonviolent action and community organizing. As this is an applied program, students learn skills and build professional networks through the internship, which can be completed in a wide variety of contexts.

Students may apply early to the M.A. degree in Peace and Conflict Studies and double count 9 credit hours of graduate courses toward both degree programs. See the Combined Bachelor's/Master's Degree Program Policy in the University Catalog for more information.

Admission Requirements

The university affirmatively strives to provide educational opportunities and access to students with varied backgrounds, those with special talents and adult students.

First-Year Students on the Kent Campus: First-year admission policy on the Kent Campus is selective. Admission decisions are based upon cumulative grade point average, strength of high school college preparatory curriculum and grade trends. Students not admissible to the Kent Campus may be administratively referred to one of the seven regional campuses to begin their college coursework. For more information, visit the admissions website for first-year students.

First-Year Students on the Regional Campuses: First-year admission to Kent State’s campuses at Ashtabula, East Liverpool, Geauga, Salem, Stark, Trumbull and Tuscarawas, as well as the Twinsburg Academic Center, is open to anyone with a high school diploma or its equivalent. For more information on admissions, contact the Regional Campuses admissions offices.

International Students: All international students must provide proof of proficiency of the English language (unless they meet specific exceptions) through the submission of an English language proficiency test score or by completing English language classes at Kent State’s English as a Second Language Center before entering their program. For more information, visit the admissions website for international students.

Former Students: Former Kent State students who have not attended another institution since Kent State and were not academically dismissed will complete the re-enrollment process through the Financial, Billing and Enrollment Center. Former students who attended another college or university since leaving Kent State must apply for admissions as a transfer or post-undergraduate student.

Transfer Students: Students who attended an educational institution after graduating from high school or earning their GED must apply as transfer students. For more information, visit the admissions website for transfer students.

Admission policies for undergraduate students may be found in the University Catalog's Academic Policies.

Students may be required to meet certain criteria to progress in their program. Any progression requirements will be listed on the program's Coursework tab

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

1. Demonstrate the research and analytical skills that will be useful while working in the field of peace studies and conflict management.
2. Analyze the dynamics of social conflicts and apply the principles of nonviolent theory and practice in order to wage conflict constructively to bring about social or political change.
3. Utilize conflict management and peacebuilding skills and knowledge to effectively develop, teach and/or implement approaches to preventing, managing and resolving conflicts.
4. Demonstrate an ability to identify and analyze the cultural dimensions of conflicts and conflict management.
5. Describe and interpret the roles that gendered power dynamics play in conflicts and conflict management.
6. Demonstrate a broad grounding in the field of peace and conflict studies by being able to explain the historical evolution of the field, by identifying and analyzing a full range of conflict dynamics and by designing constructive and appropriate intervention tactics and strategies.
7. Demonstrate an ability to explain the main theories on causes, expression and consequences of international conflicts, and comparatively evaluate different mechanisms of prevention, management and resolution of international conflicts.

Roadmap

This roadmap is a recommended semester-by-semester plan of study for this program. Students will work with their advisor to develop a sequence based on their academic goals and history. Courses designated as critical (!) must be completed in the semester listed to ensure a timely graduation.

• Delivery:
  • In person
• Location:
  • Kent Campus