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Peaceful Moments
University of Texas Global Ethics and Conflict Resolution 2007 Summer Symposium
The University of Texas at Austin Project on Conflict Resolution
UT Willie Nelson Center Students
This summer 50 high school students participated in the University of Texas at Austin (UT) Global Ethics and Conflict Resolution 2007 Symposium. Participants came from as far away as Indonesia to interact with university students, staff, and distinguished faculty to discuss conflict at the local and global level with the aim of exploring avenues for peace.
The Symposium was organized around the key objectives of Understanding, Training, Practice, Creativity, and Relationship. All speakers, workshops, panels, and activities were coordinated to meet these objectives.
First, participants gained Understanding of differing perspectives on the meaning of peace and conflict resolution among groups of people. An illustrative activity from the symposium posed ‘ethical dilemmas’ to students challenging them to critically think about the development and application of ethical standards.
Sarah, Kaitlin, and Abbey are involved in one of the many discussions of conflict resolution.
Second, participants received Training in conflict resolution skills through rigorous workshops. UT graduate students lead the high school participants through training exercises to teach skills for holding difficult conversations, taking others’ perspective, and contacting and communicating with political leaders to name a few.
Third, participants were able to Practice their skills through simulation of international affairs and public policy. The discussions surrounding the simulations focused on the war in Iraq, treatment of prisoners of war, and concerns for the environment and sustainability.
Fourth, participants expressed Creativity through art and music to promote peace. Three projects were completed during the symposium: (a) a Peaceful Moments ‘Internet magazine’ accompanied by Willie Nelson’s and Amy Nelson’s “A Peaceful Solution” soundtrack.
(b) a Make a Noise video for Amnesty International’s campaign for Darfur; and (c) a music video highlighting peace and conflict resolution.
Several activities allowed participants to get to know each other and begin to develop a sense of community.
Finally, students developed Relationships with each other as they explored their diverging views while converging in dialogue on those topics. Some participants expressed enthusiasm about meeting other students with similar interests as them, while others were invigorated to have discussions with students who had completely different views as them.
At the heart of the symposium was the community of high school students, undergraduate and graduate college students, university staff, and distinguished faculty that emerged due to a common goal of peace and conflict resolution.
Amy, Nikki, Sloane, Emma and others work on the Peaceful Moments Internet Magazine and video, accompanied by “A Peaceful Solution”.
The energy and enthusiasm of the participants created a unique experience of collaboration and fun. Amy was one of our participants, and puts it best when she said, “It was an amazing week. Everyone was really nice and a lot of fun…. I enjoyed the speakers and activities. I learned useful skills for everyday life and learned interesting things about the world.”
If you want to see a few other videos done by the high school students who participated in the University of Texas at Austin (UT) Global Ethics and Conflict Resolution 2007 Symposium, please go to UTGlobal’s YouTube channel.
The UT Summer Symposium is an annual event that is supported by the UT Willie Nelson Center students for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
During the school year the UT Willie Nelson Center students for Peace and Conflict Resolution make it a point to involve themselves in local events like the Old Pecan Street Festival in downtown Austin.
Dr. Madeline Maxwell is Director of the UT Summer Symposium and founder of the University of Texas Project on Conflict Resolution.
Please take a moment to read Peaceful Moments magazine online to compliment your video experience. Excellent resource for historical facts you might not know.
Read Part 2
Read Part 3
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August 26th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Your imagery and the quotes you used gave me some great ideas for some video. Man, I love working together with people rather than always having to fight against people as it seems I used to. I was using copyright at the end of my videos just so the greedy rich couldn’t use the material to fuel their greed, but I read today about creative commons which sounds much more like my style of sharing creativity and promoting peace. Thanks for the wonderful video!
Love, Hope, Peace, & Christ Be With You,
Cal-el
August 27th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
To All who are involved with this wonderful project
I watched your “Peaceful Moments” video and read your “Peaceful Moments” magazine online ~ and both of them are “first class/world class”!
Putting them together was a great idea. It helped me a lot to go to the magazine after watching the video…and be able to take my time and read more about the individual creations that are reminders of so many wonderful Peaceful Solutions throughout our common World History. Because of things like this that you and other people like you are doing, there is good reason to hope that so much more is possible. So many wonderful ideas have been implemented in this project. It’s just the beginning of where all who participated are heading with this. And when you’re heading in the right direction, the world opens up.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
[...] University of Texas at Austin (UT) Global Ethics and Conflict Resolution 2007 Symposium. Please read Part 1 if you didn’t get a chance to see the groundbreaking work by Dr. Madeline Maxwell, Director [...]
August 27th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
[...] University of Texas Summer Symposium 1 [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
[...] read Part 1 as well as Part 2 and watch the two videos the students produced using Willie Nelson’s and [...]
September 6th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Liz and Jay, Thanks so much for the beautiful treatment you gave our story! Thanks for the great comments. Cal, I wanted to make sure that you knew that the urls for all the images and information are available on the magazine version the student participants made. http://www.utpcr.org/activities/PROD75_008778.html