Nimisha Pandey spent last summer in Mukwonago studying water scarcity. Sol Thea Kelley-Jones taught conflict resolution in the West Bank of Palestine. Brad Jamison worked on public health and water projects in Macedonia.
The students’ summer projects demonstrate the local focus and worldwide reach of UWM’s new Master of Sustainable Peacebuilding program.
The only professional program of its kind in Wisconsin, and one of only a handful nationally, MSP combines academic training with real-world experience aimed at fostering sustainable peace. Students come out of the two-year program with a stronger grasp of the toughest problems facing the world and an understanding of how to work in a systemically innovative way to address those complex issues.
Those enrolled say, quite literally, that the world is their classroom.
“It was refreshing and encouraging to see concepts taught in MSP courses materialize in practice at the professional level,” said Jamison, whose work with the Institute of Public Health in Skopje, Macedonia, centered on freshwater policies and practices.
The emerging field of sustainable peacebuilding, which combines systems ecology and complexity theory with economic development, conflict resolution, poverty reduction, health and resource stewardship, will continue to experience substantial growth in the coming decades, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Peacebuilding has evolved in the past four decades from a tight focus on war and peace to include climate and environment, human development, democracy, food security, gender, education, public health and genocide prevention.
The UWM program was founded by Tim Ehlinger, an ecologist focused on sustainable development and conflict over natural resources and the former director of UWM’s interdisciplinary program in Conservation and Environmental Sciences, in collaboration with Rob Ricigliano, a lawyer and mediation expert who previously served as director of UWM’s Institute for World Affairs.
In proposing the peacebuilding program in 2013, the two projected an enrollment of 28 by the fifth year. MSP has nearly reached that goal in its second year, with 25 students currently enrolled. Four hail from abroad. Five come from outside Wisconsin.
Kelley-Jones, a playwright, director, and human rights activist who’s worked in high-conflict spots ranging from troubled neighborhoods in Madison to refugee camps in the Middle East and on the U.S.-Mexico border, said the growing number and complexity of social justice issues worldwide inspired her to apply.
“While my work and training had primarily been in social and cultural systems, I had long been aware of the need for an environmental lens and was interested in garnering an academic grounding in ecological systems and social-ecological interactions,” she said. “I was drawn to the interdisciplinary orientation and the systems approach of the coursework and liked the combination of academic work and field work that the program offered.”
Kelley-Jones spent last summer working at Wi’am, the Palestinian Conflict Resolution and Transformation Center in Bethlehem, where she led trainings and mentored young leaders in conflict resolution and non-violent conflict transformation. She also visited other groups dedicated to peacebuilding in the volatile region.
A program application to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents says peacebuilding is “premised on the idea that long-term success and durable peace require a holistic approach that considers all facets of a society, including the natural environment, people, governance and politics.”
Students take seven courses specifically designed for MSP. Then they choose electives depending on their scholarly focus. Those classes may be taken in the College of Letters and Science, College of Nursing, Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, School of Freshwater Sciences, or other units.
Pandey already has a doctorate in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University in her native India. She moved to Milwaukee in 2012 and volunteered as a tutor for refugees at the International Institute of Wisconsin. When a friend told her about MSP, she saw potential to take a next step forward professionally.
“I was born and brought up in India, a country facing several socio-ecological problems,” she said. “These complex socio-ecological problems are not limited to a specific country. They exist everywhere and are interconnected. This necessitates seeing these complex issues holistically in a non-linear way, and this is the moment where the application of the MSP skills is required.”
As part of her studies, Pandey is working with the nonprofit Alliance for Peacebuilding on a group project centered on climate change and conflict. After spending her first summer studying water issues in Wisconsin, she’ll head next summer to India to learn more about water pollution, food scarcity and their impact on public health.
Delving more deeply into topics of international concern can yield a glum outlook: so many problems, so hard to fix. But it can also yield hope, and satisfaction.
“It’s such a humanizing and emotional experience to connect with people thousands of kilometers from home,” Jamison said. “Those moments, and wanting to share those moments with others, are far and away the most humbling and encouraging experiences I’ve had during my time in the MSP.”
