Washington, DC, December 9, 2022: The Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education (Forage Center) hosted the 10th Annual National Community College Peacebuilding Seminar October 28-29, November 4-5 and November 11-12, 2022. The seminar, a three-part, interactive, virtual event on peacebuilding, social justice, and civic engagement, attracted 49 faculty, students, and professionals from U.S. 17 colleges and universities as well as attendees from Nigeria and Sweden.

The 2022 program focused on climate change, domestic terrorism, and civic engagement. There were also sessions on pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. Presenters joined from Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, University of Cincinnati’s Center for Cyber Strategy and Policy, Pulitzer Center, World Beyond War, Homes Not Borders, Guides.vote, and Institute for Economics and Peace. See the full agenda and view the 2022 program, and previous years, on the Forage Center’s YouTube channel.

The seminar is designed to provide community colleges - which represent 45% of American undergraduates -  with access to organizations and experts focusing on a range of peacebuilding topics and issues. While entirely virtual this year, previous face-to face seminar participants have visited the U.S. Department of State, National Museum of American Diplomacy, U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Created with high engagement between speakers, students, and professionals in mind, the seminar garnered praise from those attending.

“I gained knowledge of how domestic terror groups have become a major security concern within US and on perspectives and dynamics of climate change as a global threat to peacebuilding and development,” said Obi Onyeigwe, from Youths for Peacebuilding and Development based in Nigeria.

Sarah Lynn Bowman, faculty at Austin Community College in Texas and Uppsala University in Sweden, said that “the annual peacebuilding seminar has been a wonderful experience, both in-person and with the online programming. I have learned so much about the nature of strategic peacebuilding in its many forms and especially how we might build curriculum and events at the community college level.”

Jean Guerdy Pau, originally from Haiti and a student at the Brookdale Community College, said the seminar “provided tools that will help me be more effective in my everyday life, especially in the community I am living in. These principles won’t just help me to navigate conflicts with others, but it can also help me help them grow as individuals in certain areas of their lives, by sharing with them the knowledge I gained from attending the seminar.”

“The seminar is an important opportunity for students to interact with professionals in the field. We keep the seminar fairly small so that we can really have engagement and growth” commented Forage Center president David J. Smith.

Previous seminars have been hosted by Maryland’s Montgomery College (2013), Northern Virginia Community College (2014-2017), and George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution (2018-2019). The Forage Center has hosted since 2020.

Planning for the next seminar will begin February 2023. If you are interested in attending or presenting at the next seminar, to be held Fall 2023, please contact Priscilla Briones at priscilla@foragecenter.org and sign up for the Forage Center newsletter to stay updated with Forage Center news.

# # #

Established in 2015, the Forage Center for Peacebuilding and Humanitarian Education (Forage Center) is a not-for-profit focusing on experiential based humanitarian and peacebuilding education. It is the only Washington, DC-based national seminar focusing on peacebuilding, conflict, and global issues designed for community colleges.