Minor in Peace & Justice Course Descriptions

PJU 279G - CORE: Interpersonal Negotiation & Mediation
3 Credits
This course introduces basic and intermediate level skills useful for resolving interpersonal conflicts and reconciling relationships post trauma. Building on an understanding of conflict theory and communication, the course uses skills of active listening, problem-solving and bargaining in family, work and community conflicts. Emphasis will be placed on training through simulations and role-play. 

Particular attention will be focused on the areas of interest-based negotiation, principled mediation and victim-offender reconciliation. These topics will serve as the vehicle for addressing the question of the seminar: How shall we live in the world in the light of divine and social justice? 

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status; ENG 102 or ENG 111. Not open to students with Credit in PJU 230, CRJ 237, CRJ 379B, or PJU 379C. This course partially fulfills the Social and Behavioral Science requirement.

PJU 379B - CORE: Peace & Justice: Catholic Social Teaching
3 Credits
The study of justice and peace through the application of the social teaching of the Catholic Church and the findings of social and political science. 

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status; ENG 102 or ENG 111. Not open to students who have completed POL/THL/SJU/PJU 278. This course partially fulfills the Social and Behavioral Science requirement.

PJU 497 - Internship in Peace & Justice
1-6 Credits
Field placement under supervision in a local human service agency. The student will spend 50 hours in the field for each hour of Credit.. Students in this course are required to meet with faculty weekly in seminar to discuss and to reflect upon the practical application of their academic work. 

Prerequisites: senior standing; 2.5 GPA; successful completion of application requirements for fieldwork.

 

POL 360 - Seminar: International Politics
3 Credits
Investigation of the major issues and concepts that inform world politics with special emphasis on developments since 1945; consideration of United States foreign policy and domestic political culture in light of World War II, the Shoah, the war in Vietnam; the development of international organization and international law. This course fulfills the diversity, global, and multicultural requirement.

 

SOC 279B - CORE: Nonviolent Social Change
3 Credits
The course addresses the philosophical and religious foundations, theory, history, and practice of nonviolence as a method of social change. The course will include study of some of the great nonviolent leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Building on a nonviolent foundation, the course explores strategies for social organizing, designing campaigns for social change, fundraising, coalition building, recruiting, marketing ideas, media relations, and empowering grassroots leadership.

The class will explore common elements of successful social change movements throughout history including: labor, women’s, human rights, poor people’s, peace and environmental. In relation to social change, the course will address the question, “What does it mean to belong to a community?”

Students will work with diverse communities and have the opportunity to translate knowledge into action through a community service component focused on the common good. 

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status. Pre- or Co-requisite: ENG 111. Not open to students with Credit in SOC 320 or SOC 322. This course partially fulfills the Social Behavioral Science requirement.

 

SOC 379A - CORE: Poverty & Development Seminar
3 Credits
This course will examine the causes, consequences, and solutions to Central American poverty while studying in Guatemala. The course will explore poverty in the context of colonial history, economic globalization, political and economic policies of unrestrained capitalism and trade, population growth, tropical climate, and cultural patterns. Students will travel in both urban and rural Guatemala meeting with non-profit organizations, government officials, and living with poor families.

Grassroots efforts to address poverty including micro loan programs, sustainable agriculture, empowerment of women, literacy campaigns, prejudice reduction, and education for democracy will be emphasized. Spanish is useful but not necessary.

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status; ENG 102 or ENG 111. Not open to students with Credit in SOC 241. This course fulfills the diversity, global, and multicultural requirement. This course partially fulfills the Social and Behavioral Science requirement.

SOC 379B - CORE: Global Ethnic Relations
3 Credits
This course seeks to empower students to become knowledgeable, caring, and active citizens in a diverse and often ethnically polarized world. The course examines multiple dimensions of global diversity (race, ethnicity, religion); common responses to differences including prejudice, discrimination, segregation, colonization, genocide and positive alternatives such as assimilation and egalitarian pluralism. We will examine ethnic relations in the U.S. and around the world through the lens of history.

 The course concludes with the ethical basis for seeking social justice via anti-discrimination work and strategies for dismantling discrimination and repairing strained ethnic divides at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. Students will have the opportunity to translate knowledge into action for social justice through a bridging cultures project.

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status; ENG 102 or ENG 111. This course fulfills the diversity, global, and multicultural requirement. This course partially fulfills the Social and Behavioral Science requirement. Not open to students with Credit in SOC/SWK 346 or 279D.

SOC 379C - CORE: Causes of Collective Violence: Terrorism, Genocide, War
3 Credits 
This is an introduction to theories of conflict and war from the inter-group to the international level. Included are causes of terrorism, ethnic conflict and genocide, revolution, and interstate war. This includes an analysis of causes of conflict at four levels: individual, small group, the nation/state, and the international system.

This course is interdisciplinary, drawing on theories from biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. Case studies of contemporary conflicts are utilized to explain and test various theoretical perspectives and to examine the consequences of war. Not open to students with Credit in POL/CRJ/SOC 347.

Prerequisite: CORE 179 or appropriate transfer status; ENG 102 or ENG 111.