2021: A Year in Review
Building peace, one block at a time
Two January events regularly set the tone for what work the Center for Peacemaking sets out to do in the new year. First is Pope Francis’ World Day of Peace address. Our scholar in residence, T. Michael McNulty, S.J., reflected on the 2021 theme: a culture of care as a path to peace. Second is the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, which we celebrated at Marquette and in Milwaukee. Both services emphasized King’s aim to eradicate what he called “the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”
These themes shine through in the Center for Peacemaking’s work and mission. Below are just some of the many glimmers of hope that shone brightly through yet another difficult year. In the past year, we have found our hope in communities that practice care and work together to address racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.
Building community, addressing needs
This year the inaugural Near West Side week highlighted Milwaukee’s Near West Side neighborhoods as thriving communities with exciting and unexpected opportunities for residents, employees, and visitors alike.
The PARC initiative continued, with a renewed focus on improving the health, housing, commercial corridors, and safety of the community. An article we published in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement shared the impacts of a multi-anchor approach to community engagement and development.
Some notable accomplishments of the past year include improvements at 85 residences, 6 new business openings, and the launch of several Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI) action activities. Among the already completed action activities are the installation of traffic calming planters and the completion of the Fats triangle transformation. We also launched a website for students and community members facing housing insecurity or homelessness.
In May, Marquette University and the City of Milwaukee partnered with the International Town & Gown Association (ITGA) to host it’s 2021 virtual conference.
A few months later, in July, we helped organize the Near West Side Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Summit. This gathering brought together community stakeholders to address their hopes and needs for the Near West Side community.
The student survey team — comprised of undergraduate and graduate students — were busy throughout the summer interacting with residents to gather input about the impact of completed interventions, as well as to monitor changing community needs. Likewise, the inaugural Bud Frankel Fellow, Michael Schmitz, hit the ground running, as he led the PARC’s team vacant home initiative (scroll to page 39 after clicking the link). This opportunity impacted both his personal and professional development by providing real-world experiences that can’t be replicated in a classroom.
Peace education, with a focus on mental health
Foremost among these is the 4 Schools Initiative, launched by Sigma Pi Phi (the Boulé) in response to research indicating significant mental health challenges facing Milwaukee youth and families as a result of the pandemic. Partnering with the Boulé, the Center for Peacemaking provides Peace Works programing to support Milwaukee youth, especially African American students, struggling with mental health, academic, and/or behavioral challenges exacerbated by COVID-19. The initiative employs best practices in the delivery of psychoeducational services and clinical mental health services to help students become resilient learners while building healthy school and family relationships.
The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Success Center, which is run in collaboration with Peace Works, provided virtual and in-person instruction this year. This program provides students space and support to navigate their frustrations and repair relationships they had harmed. Calming skills such as breathing and yoga were especially beneficial to students dealing with the added stress and uncertainty of the pandemic. Youth discovered their own agency and voices by helping other students and offering words of encouragement.
At Notre Dame Schools of Milwaukee, we continued offering the Peace Works curriculum to students using the new Peace Works Teacher Toolkit. The toolkit is the result of a multi-year collaboration with administrators, parents, teachers, and students at Notre Dame Middle School.
We published an article in the Journal of Peace Education that examines teacher and administrator perceptions of peace education programs including impacts and challenges when implementing programs such as Peace Works in urban contexts.
Providing a transformative education
Peace Studies continues growing into one of the most robust programs offered at Marquette. This year we saw a notable increase of nursing and health students interested in Peace Studies.
In the Introduction to Peace Studies course, students learned nonviolent theories and developed campaigns to address a variety of social justice issues, including mass incarceration and juvenile incarceration in Milwaukee, racism and diversity on campus, sexual assault and harassment on campus, food security, and clean water.
In the Peace Studies Capstone, all of our students completed internships at local organizations such as Bread of Healing, International Institute of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Justice Center, Justice Point, Next Door, the Public Defenders office, and the Urban Ecology Center.
Responding to the crisis in Afghanistan
The year started with a continuation of the long-standing relationship we have had with our partners in Afghanistan. These efforts changed drastically in the days and weeks before Kabul fell. We supported those with immediate needs and continue to help those who have been displaced. The Center for Peacemaking’s efforts to help an Afghan refugee and his family come to Marquette was featured in the National Catholic Reporter.
Alumni make their “marq”
Center for Peacemaking alumni are putting the skills and values they learned during their time at Marquette into action. Some are working for change through local government and urban policy, generating creative solutions through social innovation, and providing care to address health inequities. We are proud of all the good works our alumni are engaged in and appreciate the time they take to connect with and inspire current students.
We also took time this year to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of Center for Peacemaking co-founder and Peace Studies instructor, Terry Rynne, as the recipient of the Way Klingler College of Arts & Sciences’ Person for Others award.
Spreading hope
Many of our speakers over the past year focused on messages of hope. Kathy Sherman, CSJ, did this through song, MT Davila through theology, a multi-sector panel on combatting human trafficking through sharing best practices, and a panel of Jesuits through discussing the Society’s Universal Apostolic Preferences.
The Center for Peacemaking worked with the Center for the Advancement of the Humanities and the Center for Urban Research, Teaching, and Outreach to run a series of interfaith dialogues, sponsored by Wisconsin Humanities.
Student and faculty awards and recognitions
Celebrating our successes is an essential practice of community. We congratulate Dr. Louise Cainkar on receiving the community engaged teaching award, Dr. Cedric Burrows on receiving a distinguished research award, and the Marquette University Black Student Union (BSU) Summer Work Group on receiving the 2021 Student Activist Award.
Faculty publications and research
2021 was a big year for publications. Peace Studies program director, Dr. Louise Cainkar, edited Arab American Women: Representation and Refusal. Former Peace Studies program director, Dr. Michael Duffey, published War No More. Executive committee member, Dr. Rob Smith, published Black Liberation from Reconstruction to Black Lives Matter. Peace Studies advisor board member, Dr. Kate Ward, published Wealth, Virtue, and Moral Luck. And Peace Studies student, Paige Stoeffler, published a lyrical picture book Sometimes Things Happen.
Turning student dreams into reality
This year, the university launched “Time to Rise,” a comprehensive fundraising campaign to ensure a Marquette education is available and affordable for generations to come. Building an endowment for the Center for Peacemaking is one of the campaign’s priorities. Reaching this goal will allow us to continue providing students with high-impact educational experiences in applied peacemaking — experiences that make a real difference in student’s lives and in the community.
In March, a panel of students presented on the personal impact of working on Center for Peacemaking community research initiatives. Building on the momentum of student experiences, the comprehensive campaign, and Give Marquette Day, the Byrne Endowed Fund for Community Research and Assistance was established.
This year eleven students received summer peacemaking fellowships to learn about and practice nonviolence in a variety of ways. One event featured internship-based projects that addressed women’s empowerment in El Salvador with Programa Velasco, US immigration policy with the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN), and youth peace education with Little Friends for Peace. Another event featured organizing and activism-based projects including one that addressed domestic violence in rural settings, one that studied biblical stories of women, and one that examined broad-based organizing for racial justice.
The fellowship and applied peacemaking opportunities offered through the Center for Peacemaking provide students the experience and courage to dream big through careers that promote the common good.
Looking back at all of these accomplishments, I’m so proud of the community we have built and the impact of this work. We wish you a blessed new year, and look forward to all the ways the coming year will invite us to work together to build a culture of peace and nonviolence!
