The University of North Florida invites your participation in an extraordinary program of activities marking Peace Awareness Week. The culminating event will be a 3-day Symposium addressing the challenge of peace development in our personal lives, our local community, our nation, and around the world.

A Symposium on Conflict
Transformation:
Theory & Practice for Peace
in Troubled Times

October 4-6, 2007
University of North Florida
Jacksonville, Florida, USA

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM
OTHER EVENTS DURING PEACE AWARENESS WEEK

The Florida Center for Public and International Policy, in collaboration with UNF's Peace Education Partners, announce the inaugural UNF Symposium on Conflict Transformation. This 3-day conference is open to academics, students, conflict transformation practitioners, community leaders, and citizens. There are multiple registration options for all or part of the Symposum program.

OTHER EVENTS DURING THE WEEK (MANY ARE FREE!): The Symposium is designed to be the culmination of a week-long series of events during Peace Awareness Week (PAW). For information on other events besides the Symposium, go to WEEK-AT-GLANCE. Events include visual and performing art presentations like The Mountain of Peace and Echo Boom, an evening lecture/panel program on The Earth Charter, a celebration of Gandhi's Birthday including a lecture by a Gandhian scholar, a 2-day outdoor Festival on the UNF Green, a film screening at WJCT TV studios, a community walk for peace and healing in downtown Jacksonville, and more! Many events of PEACE AWARENSS WEEK are FREE, but some do require registration or a ticket purchase, including the theatrical production of ECHO BOOM on the Lazzara Mainstage, as well as the Thursday evening Keynote by Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, The Rising Global Conscience. There are substantial ticket and registration discounts for Students.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR THE OPENING OF PAW: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 at 7PM :
This is a FREE EVENT! Peace Awareness Week begins with the 6pm opening of a weeklong exhibition of TWO extraordinary art exhibitions: Huong's 200-foot Peace Mural and Lamantia's Peace Illuminations. Later that evening, the UNF Community and Jacksonville public are invited to a free presentation of the musical drama, The Mountain of Peace, beginning at 7pm in Lazzara Hall.

MORE ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM: The purpose of the inter-disciplinary symposium is enhancement of knowledge and skills that support participants’ abilities to recognize diverse needs that precipitate conflict situations, and responsively develop peaceful processes of conflict transformation. Presentations will address peace education and development across through interdisciplinary approaches to conflict transformation, with application to both theory and practice. Presentations will also include contextually based interpretations of conflict transformation processes and their outcomes.

ABOUT CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION: Conflict is omnipresent, emerging from many sources with intrapersonal, interpersonal and systemic antecedents. Conflict transformation may be defined as a process of proactively engaging a social problem, oppositional challenge, ideological clash, or unmet need. The goal of conflict transformation is facilitation of peaceful resolution processes which positively respond to the conditions that sustain a conflict. The transformation not only ends violence that produced or resulted from the conflict, but also results in personal, interpersonal or systemic change. Ultimately, conflict transformation is a form of peace development in proactive and pro-social response to needs of humans and all life forms within our earth community. Such processes may include active listening through genuine dialogue, reframing a problem, development of a social conscience, taking responsibility, taking risk, dynamics of restorative justice, and facilitation of reconciliation, re-education, and forgiveness.

OUTCOMES: The program of the Symposium, as well as the corollary events throughout Peace Awareness Week, will bring together artists, scholars, and practitioners, and provide information about methods for proactively responding to many types of conflict. The Symposium will help evidence UNF's growing commitment to studies in conflict transformationm, diversity, and multicultural education, while serving the academic community, the surrounding community, and practitioners in the management and transformation of conflict.

SYMPOSIUM VENUE AND SCHEDULE: The Symposium convenes with the Opening Keynote by Hon. Douglas Rocke on Thursday evening, October 4th, beginning at 7:30pm in Lazarra Hall in the UNF Fine Arts Center. The public and UNF students can register for this opening session without registering for the entire Symposium. See Symposium Registration options for more information. On Friday and Saturday, the Symposium program moves to the UNF University Conference Center, and adjourns at 2:30pm following the closing luncheon on Saturday, October 6th. Later that evening (5pm) Symposium participants and Jacksonville citizens are invited to gather downtown at Friendship Fountain for a Community Walk for Healing and a closing program in the Auditorium at the Jacksonville Main Library.

Conveners of Peace Awarness Week and the Conflict Transformation Symposium:
-- The Florida Center for Public and International Policy
-- UNF Peace Education Partners (PEP)

University Sponsors:
Financial Support: Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida Center for Ethics, Public Policy & the Professions; Office of Student & International Affairs; Office of the President; partially funded by UNF Student Government;

Other University Collaborating Agencies: Fine Arts Center;  Intercultural Center for PEACE; LGBT Resource Center; InterFaith Center; Osprey Productions; UNF Art Gallery; UNF Chapter of Amnesty International;

Supporting Community Organizations (partial listing): Advanced Copy Services; Blueprint for Prosperity; Children's International Summer Village; Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville; Douglas Anderson School for the Arts;  Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice; Gandhi Memorial Society; International Peace Performers; Jacksonville Human Rights Commission; Justice & Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Saint Augustine; National Peace Alliance Foundation; Robert B. Ragland Foundation; Soka Gakkai International; United Nations Association; Wage Peace of Jacksonville; Weaver Family Foundation; WJCT Public Television;  and Women's Center of Jacksonville;

Symposim Planning Committee:
Dr. Candice Carter; Chair, UNF Peace Education Partners
Dr. John Frank, Symposium/Peace Awareness Week Project Coordinator
Dr. Bert Koegler; Chair, UNF Dept. of Philosophy
Dr. Henry Thomas; Executive Director, The Florida Center for Public & International Policy