At Guilford, peace begins with a conversation in Founders Hall

Peace showed up in Founders Hall this week in folded pages, hand-drawn illustrations and conversations with students who had somewhere else to be but were curious enough to stop.

Students in Professor Zulfiya Tursunova’s “Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies” class presented zines — student-created magazines — about people who refused to accept violence, injustice or indifference as the natural order of things. As classmates and other students passed through Founders, the students shared what they had learned and answered questions about peacemakers including Howard Zehr, Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathai and Betty Williams.

The public presentation was part of the class’s observance of the International Day of Peace, celebrated Monday, Sept. 21.

“The idea is to celebrate and honor peacebuilders and address the issues of violence, war, atrocities and genocide that are taking place around the world,” says Zulfiya, an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies.

But the assignment was more than an exercise in history. Zulfiya wanted students to study the strategies peacemakers used and then consider a more immediate question: What can young people do now?

Peacebuilding is often imagined as work carried out by presidents, diplomats and international organizations, Zulfiya says. In other words, it comes from the top and eventually makes its way down to everyone else.

The zines offered another version.

“I think it shows them the capacity to learn what strategies are used in peacebuilding,” Zulfiya says, “and how they can contribute to building societies that are based on justice and peace.”

The people featured in the zines approached peace from different directions. Mandela helped lead South Africa out of apartheid and toward democracy. Maathai connected environmental work, human rights and peace through Kenya’s Green Belt Movement. Zehr helped establish the modern field of restorative justice, which asks communities to consider harm, accountability and repair. Williams helped organize a movement for peace during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Ada Boroughs ’28 chose Williams, though she knew little about her before beginning the assignment.

“I was interested in the whole idea of the troubles in Ireland,” Ada says. “When I started looking into peace activists, I read up on her a bit, and I thought it was very interesting the way she tackled the Northern Ireland conflict.”

Ada is a double major in Creative Writing and Environmental Studies. She enrolled in the course after an adviser recommended it to her. Her majors did not leave much room to examine peace and conflict directly, she says, and the class offered a way to explore conflicts around the world from different perspectives.

It also challenged an assumption easy to make when the news is filled with wars and violence: that peaceful action is too small for the moment.

“I think my biggest takeaway from this class so far has been that even in situations where it seems like violence is so deeply ingrained and where it feels like it might be the only answer, peace initiatives are really effective,” Ada says.

A person does not need an army of supporters to begin, she says. Education, dedication and compassion can be enough to draw others to the work.

That may have been the quiet lesson of the Founders Hall presentation, but, really, many of Guilford’s classes. Students did not keep what they learned inside a classroom or tucked into an essay for a professor to read. They put it into words and pictures, carried it into one of the busiest buildings on campus and talked with whomever stopped long enough to ask a question.

For Ada, that matters because students are preparing to enter a world that will ask them to make choices about conflict, justice and community.

“It’s a very interesting way to raise awareness about what’s going on in our world,” she says. “I think it’s an important class for being well-informed and being able, going into adulthood, to tackle those sorts of issues.”

Peace can feel like a word reserved for treaties, ceremonies and one day on the calendar. In Founders Hall, students made it something smaller and more useful: a conversation that could begin with a few folded pages and one person willing to stop.

Want to learn more about a college that believes you can make a difference in the world, too? Contact Steeve Mencarini, Guilford’s Chief Enrollment Officer, or call the Office of Admission at 336-316-2465.