Peace & Justice

UofL is building a culture of peace and justice through a variety of means designed to create more resilient communities. Our students, staff, and faculty are engaged citizens who work inside and outside the classroom to help make our community safer, saner, and better for everyone. We pursue these goals through our commitments to education, research, and civic engagement. Listed below are some of UofL's academic and other programs that share these goals.

African American Theatre Program

Founded in 1993, the African American Theatre Program is integral to the Theatre Arts Department.  It develops theatre artists trained in the traditions of African American theatre and contributes to the multi-cultural arts movement.  The AATP includes two Mainstage productions a season, community service, touring, and eight courses for graduate and undergraduate students.  Subjects include theatre history, literature, performance, and theatre practicum.  Undergraduates can earn a minor in African American Theatre or Cultural Performance. Graduate students can earn a certificate through the program.

Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research

The Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research is based in the College of Arts & Sciences. Its mission is to bridge the gap between academic research and social justice community advocates who might apply that research. The Institute seeks to advance understanding of the legacy of the southern civil rights movement and to honor the vision of longtime Louisville racial justice organizer and journalist Anne Braden, whose outlook was global but whose activism was concentrated at the grassroots level. The Institute sponsors, stimulates, and disseminates interdisciplinary research relevant to the Louisville community and the U.S. South on social movements, citizen participation, public policy reforms, and social, racial, gender and economic justice.

Center for the Study of Crime and Justice in Black Communities

The mission of CSCJBC is to promote research and teaching to the community of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Louisville as well as community members and officials who construct and pass public policy on issues related to crime among black populations. Through singular and collaborative efforts, CSCJBC exists to cultivate new perspectives and public policy initiatives which seek correctives to the issues chosen for exploration. The goals of CSCJBC reflect those promoted by the University of Louisville and the College of Arts and Sciences of enhancing research and scholarly activities with the aim of achieving national prominence, promoting intercultural understanding, and cultivating real-world change in ever-evolving communities.

Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order

Among the five distinct awards, the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order is presented annually to stimulate the recognition, dissemination and critical analysis of outstanding proposals for improving world order.  Submissions are judged according to originality, feasibility and potential impact, not by the cumulative record of the nominee.  They may address a wide range of global concerns including foreign policy and its formation; the conduct of international relations or world politics; global economic issues, such as world trade and investment; resolution of regional, ethnic or racial conflicts; the proliferation of destructive technologies; global cooperation on environmental protection or other important issues; international law and organization; any combination or particular environmental protection or other important issues; international law and organization; any combination or particular aspects of these, or any other suitable idea which could at least incrementally lead to a more just and peaceful world order.

Justice Administration

The undergraduate (Bachelor of Science) degree program in Justice Administration actively engages students in the learning process, provides students with a balance of theoretical knowledge and applied skills and promotes civic involvement and civic leadership in the practice of justice administration. This is accomplished through the use of varied instructional techniques and educational strategies, within and outside the classroom. The program offers students an active internship program with placements in a wide-range of local, state and federal criminal justice agencies. Additionally, students are provided with up-to-date information on available jobs within and outside the Greater Louisville Metropolitan Area as well as access to more than 50 hiring agencies during the annual career fair.

Liberal Studies

The College of Arts and Sciences offers an interdisciplinary Bachelors of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies which transcends the boundaries of inquiry permitted by single-discipline departments. UofL's Liberal Studies program is part of a national trend, giving eligible students the opportunity to create individualized, interdisciplinary programs that reflect each student's career goals and/or intellectual interests.  Among many options available, students may create their own interdisciplinary program in Peace Studies, which consists of a minor in any department within the college of Arts and Sciences plus two concentrations of four-courses each approved by the Director of Liberal Studies.

Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice

The mission of the Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice advances the work, study and practice of peacemaking, social justice, and violence prevention through education, training, service, and research. Drawing strength from the vision and work of Muhammad Ali, the Muhammad Ali Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of Louisville develops initiatives that support human dignity, foster responsible citizenship, further peace and justice and address the impact of violence in local, state, national and international arenas.  The Ali Institute has a special concern for young people living with violence in urban areas; therefore, we seek to equip the young and those working with them to be agents of peace and justice in their communities. Because the Ali Institute recognizes that peace cannot exist in the absence of justice, we strive, through our work and energy, to be essential contributors to the cause of justice locally and around the world.

Office for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Services

The Office for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Services works to strengthen and sustain an inclusive campus community at the University of Louisville, one that welcomes people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions through support, educational resources, and advocacy.   The office works in partnership with other diversity efforts on campus supporting the Vice Provost for Diversity and International Affairs.

Ombuds Office

The Ombuds is an independent, informal, neutral and confidential resource who provides assistance to members of the University community in exploring options to resolve problems, complaints and conflicts.

Pan-African Studies

The department of Pan-African Studies (PAS) fosters the multidisciplinary study of the societies and cultures of Africa and persons of African ancestry past and present, throughout the world. To this end, PAS offers an extensive program of study, including undergraduate major and minor and graduate programs focusing on Africa and the Diaspora. This program of study seeks to:

• Give students a broad understanding of the history, societies and cultures of the African world;
• Equip students to apply Pan-Africanist scholarship to the analysis of and engagement with contemporary social and cultural issues;
• Prepare students for the workforce or for graduate work in Pan-African Studies and/or related fields;
  
• Add an inter-cultural dimension to other academic programs.

PEACC Program (Prevention, Education an Advocacy on Campus and in the Community)

UofL research could improve organization’s ability to foster peace in Northern Ireland

Since its founding in 1999, the University of Louisville’s Prevention, Education and Advocacy on Campus and in the Community (PEACC) program has worked to create a campus culture that does not tolerate violence against women. The mission of PEACC heavily incorporates UofL’s commitment to Ideas 2 Action, the program to develop students’ critical thinking skills. The statement calls for the group to empower students to develop the skills needed to build resiliency within their interpersonal relationships and social interactions, and to mobilize students to create their own safe and healthy campus community. PEACC educates on the impact of power-based personal violence; challenges the norms that contribute to violence and hinder social justice; utilizes the arts as activism to engage and inspire; and builds student connection through peer education and Men of PEACC.

Peace, Justice & Conflict Transformation

The university's newest program is just beginning. It reflects the intimate relationship between peace and justice and also that pragmatic skills can be learned to transform conflict. Peace is intrapersonal, interpersonal, and a global goal among neighbors, social and ethnic groups, and nations. Previously, undergraduates could concentrate on Peace Studies within the Liberal Arts program, but in 2011, UofL launched an undergraduate certificate in Peace, Nonviolence & Conflict Transformation Studies to accompany any major at UofL. Contact: Director Russell Vandenbroucke, 502-852-8444, r.vandenbroucke (at) louisville.edu.

Social Change Minor

How do people, across times and places, work to change their social environment? How do they respond when their social environments change around them? Where do you fit in? With an interdisciplinary minor in social change students can explore these questions in close collaboration with peers and faculty members. Core and elective courses help students to pursue their particular interests—for example, the environment, civil rights, politics, deindustrialization, labor, or war & peace—from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In the capstone courses, students join with their peers and reach out into the community both to reflect upon and to apply the knowledge they gain in their academic and other social change-related work. The Social Change minor complements any major program. It provides valuable experience and background for careers in social movements or for a lifetime of engaged citizenship.

White Allies for Racial Justice

A group of faculty, staff, and students who want to engage in the contemporary struggle for racial justice. This involves serving as allies to faculty, staff, and students of color, cultivating community, and engaging in personal self-development work. The group's goals include:
(1) To advocate for racial justice by serving as allies with faculty, staff, and students at UofL.
(2) Cultivating communities of racial justice advocates, including communities of white anti-racists, multiracial coalitions, and communities connecting University folk with surrounding Metro Louisville racial justice advocates.
(3) Engaging in the self-development as white people that is necessary to unmask the complex ways we have internalized and continue to reproduce whiteness and white privilege.

Worker Rights Consortium

UofL is a member of the Worker Rights Consortium and a supporter of its Designated Suppliers Program. The WRC is an independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe, including those where licensed UofL apparel is manufactured. The purpose is to combat sweatshops and protect the rights of workers who make apparel and other products. The WRC conducts independent, in-depth investigations; issues public reports on factories producing for major brands; and aids workers at these factories in their efforts to end labor abuses and defend their workplace rights. UofL is also an affiliate of the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sweatshop conditions in factories worldwide.