Peace erupts at Sault College (credential validation pending)

Sault College could soon become the first community college in Ontario to offer a peace and conflict studies program.

The college's governors last night agreed to seek approval of the program from the Ontario College Credentials Validation Service.

If the two-year peace and conflict studies diploma offering is approved, it will begin taking students in September of this year.

"Peace is both a process and goal," said Sault College Dean of Health and Community Services Fran Rose in a presentation to the board of governors yesterday.

Program courses will include conflict analysis, strategies for conflict transformation, environmental ethics, sustainable development, history of social activism and peace movements, religions of the world, and Canadian Aboriginal cultures.

It will include a practicum to give students supervised opportunities to apply their knowledge.

Rose said it's a popular program in many colleges and universities across North America.

She expects 20 to 40 students will be enrolled this fall.

Graduates could apply what they've learned in community or international development, peace research, human resources, environmental protection and public policy analysis.

They could also go on to build careers as police officers, business people, government administrators, politicians, educators, social workers and health care providers.

"A lot of people already on a career path could be interested in this," she said. "It offers interesting electives."

Rose suggested the program may be interesting to people already working in a variety of areas requiring skills in conflict transformation and the creation of peace.

The curriculum was developed with support from educational leaders in peace and conflict studies programs across North America, she said.

"When we first started looking at this we came across a manual on how to set it up on the Internet," Rose said.

Several of the 15 North American experts Sault College consulted while developing the local curriculum are interested in continuing an association with the program once it begins.

And, there's a strong potential to develop articulation agreements with University of Waterloo's Conrad Grebel University College and with Algoma University's Department of Community, Economic and Social Development, she said.

These agreements could see students getting credit for Sault College courses as they continue their peace studies at the university level.

There may also be opportunities for students at Sault College to participate in some classes or seminars at faraway peace and conflict programs via live video conferencing.

Rose said the college will initially be looking to hire at least one or two part-time professors to teach some of the courses, but much of the expertise can be found in-house.

As students continue into the second year, the college may need to hire more instructors.