2022: A Review
Shaping Values; Inspiring Hope
We opened 2022 by taking a group of students, faculty, and staff on a week-long Civil Rights Pilgrimage. Our travel diary shares about all the museums and historic sites we visited in Memphis, Glendora, Jackson, Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. FOX6 interviewed students about the experience.
Transformational Educational Experiences
Beyond the Civil Rights immersion trip, we continued to provide a transformational educational experience for students.
We now offer three sessions annually of the Introduction to Peace Studies class. The signature project of the intro courses remains a group project to develop a nonviolent action campaign. Some of the topics students designed campaigns around this year included: mass and juvenile incarceration, improving the educational system, public transportation in Milwaukee, ways to assist those experiencing homelessness, accessibility for those with disabilities on campus, and making fresh food more accessible in food deserts.
The class of 2022 was one of our largest yet with 17 graduates who majored or minored in Peace Studies. We are so proud of them and what they will achieve in their personal and professional pursuits.
There were also countless more students who engaged with the Center for Peacemaking through working in our office, participating in immersion programs, completing fellowships, taking Peace Studies elective classes, and attending events on nonviolence.
Fellowships & Scholarships
The Center’s portfolio of fellowship opportunities continue to grow, providing more opportunities for students to engage in research and applied experiences each year.
The summer peacemaking fellowship program (which includes the M&J Fellowship for Peace) funded 11 students last summer. The projects ranged from internships with organizations like Nonviolent Peaceforce, Programa Velasco, the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN), Peace Works, the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office, and the Marquette University Indigeneity Lab. Other students designed multi-faceted projects around topics such as restorative justice and environmental justice.
In the spring, Ben Koziol, the second Frankel Fellow, finished his project with the Near West Side Partners co-leading the Community Corners Initiative. In the summer, Thomas Mbatna, S.J., began his Frankel Fellowship with the International Institute of Wisconsin focused on serving refugee families and youth in Milwaukee. His research project is focusing on how the education system can best serve refugee youth and the children of refugees.
With the generosity of donors and partners, we were able to establish three new opportunities. First, the John and Sue Byrne Endowed Fund for Community Research and Assistance is now fully operational.
Second, donors and the Marquette community rallied to create a scholarship for Basir Bita, an Afghan refugee, pursue a master’s degree at Marquette. Basir started his studies virtually in the fall. He will be arriving on campus in April and he is excited to continue pursuing his masters in clinical mental health counseling on campus.
Third, we partnered with the Diederich College of Communication to offer an assistantship placement for a graduate student. The first fellow, Megan Kass, focuses on narrating PARC’s achievements.
Peace Works
The Peace Works program continues to partner with schools to teach students and support educators in fostering new skills, knowledge, and behaviors that increase resiliency and self-efficacy in young people.
The MPS Success Center provides the highest level of support to students and families. The 4 Schools Mental Health Initiative serves students through small group and individual social emotional learning sessions.
Acosta Middle School has been implementing peace education with our Peace Works Teacher Toolkit. We have also provided their staff professional development in the form of “Social Emotional Learning for Educators.”
The Peace Works research team has also been busy. In November, the team presented to the Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. They also published an article in Best Practices in Jesuit Higher Education titled “A University and School Partnership: Building Tools for Reconciliation, Healing, and Resilience.”
Promoting Assets, Reducing Crime (PARC)
In partnership with the Near West Side Partners, the Center’s student and faculty PARC team continued its work on housing equity, commercial corridor development, health, and safety.
The Live, Work, Play Program continued to expand, receiving nine applications for the homeownership incentive and 21 applications for the home repair grant program. Through collaborating with Reclaiming Our Neighborhood (RON) Coalition, the Near West Side Partners and PARC also completed a Housing Survey that received over 2,270 responses.
The commercial corridor development team works to build a consistent pipeline of businesses interested in operating within the Near West Side with diverse sectors represented and a focus on supporting BIPOC entrepreneurs. In 2022 they continued the Rev-Up MKE competition and were able to invest over $250,000 in small businesses through the Brew City Match program in partnership with LISC Milwaukee
The health working team, which seeks to increase the Near West Side’s access to health resources and raise awareness regarding the community’s specific health needs, got recognized as a Healthy People 2030 Champion. They also produced a series of Public Service Announcements and conducted a resident survey that received over 600 responses.
The safety team, co-chaired by Dr. Aleks Snowden, focused their efforts on developing proactive community safety programs, reducing crimes based on data-based decisions and target interventions, and organizing activities that build a sense of community and improve quality of life. The Community Corners Initiative is one such intervention that has notably improved safety. Students also helped coordinate sexual assault awareness month activities in April.
Events
In September, in partnership with the Center for Migration Studies, we co-hosted the Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII) conference at Marquette University. The conference bolstered the work of diverse Catholic institutions, programs and ministries with immigrants and refugees. Fessahaye Mebrahtu from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Marquette student Fatima Jimenez Gonzalez presented at the conference.
The Center continues to co-sponsor Soup with Substance. Some of the topics discussed at these events included student fellowships, racial justice, solidarity, trans compassion, and Black Catholic history month. Tom Durkin also presented on James Foley and moral courage.
In November, we hosted the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice’s annual assembly at Marquette. Among those awarded was Marquette alumnus and friend of the Center for Peacemaking Art Heitzer, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Alumni
Center for Peacemaking alumni Anne Marie Gunn and Dia Henderson were both featured in Marquette Today for their postgraduate work with the Near West Side partners.
While at Marquette, Anne Marie worked as a programming assistant and student fellow. She now works as a commercial corridor coordinator for Near West Side Partners, assisting entrepreneurs in the Near West Side to start and revamp their businesses.
Dia was a graduate research assistant at the Center during her time at Marquette with a focus on the PARC initiative. Now, she serves as the Housing Resource Coordinator at Near West Side Partners.
In conjunction with the honors program, we hosted our 3rd annual alumni panel to showcase different career pathways in peacemaking. Participants included Curtis Taylor, who works at Creighton University’s Intercultural Center, Katie Shay, associate general counsel and director of human rights at Cisco Systems Incorporated, Sofia Ascorbe, assistant director of Marquette’s honors program, and Colleen Ross, communications director for NETWORK.
Student Awards
The Marquette University Indigeneity Lab received the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (WIPCS) 2022 Student Activism Award. The recipients included Danielle Barrett, Bailey Birenbaum, Clare Camblin, Rebecca DeBoer, Cameron Fronczak, Alex Liberato, Sir Lawrence Tender and Will Egan Waukau. Their work combatting the erasure of Indigenous Peoples in Milwaukee and, more broadly, in the United States as a whole make them deserving recipients.
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Looking back at all of these accomplishments, we’re so proud of the community we have built and the impact that has resulted from all the contributions and efforts of everyone who has invested in the Center for Peacemaking. Thank you, sincerely! And we look forward to all that is still to come.
