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University of San Diego Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice

 

 

 

President's Message

June 22, 1998

 

TO: Members of the University Community
FROM: Dr. Alice B. Hayes President
DATE: June 22, 1998
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON THE Institute for Peace & Justice

The wonderful gift the University has received from Mrs. Joan Kroc offers us exciting possibilities for developing an Institute for Peace & Justice which will contribute substantially to both the cause of peace in the world and to the quality of our academic programs at USD. An Institute Planning Committee has been organized and has begun the process of developing a program for the Institute. I would like as many of you as possible to contribute to this process, and this memo is an invitation for you to participate. The Committee has established a web site to facilitate communication and to keep the campus community informed of its work. The web site is at:

http://peace.acusd.edu*

I encourage you to visit it often.

The Planning Committee’s charge is to prepare detailed proposals for the academic and public programs of the Institute and for the use of space in the associated building. Members of the Committee are Dr. Joan Anderson, Dr. Dennis Briscoe, Dr. Bethami Dobkin, Dr. Patrick Drinan, Dr. Lawrence Hinman, Dr. Michele Magnin, Dr. Virginia Muller, Dr. Lance Nelson, Dr. Jo Ellen Patterson, Dr. Patricia Roth, Professor Donald Weckstein, Dr. Randy Willoughby, and Dr. Frank Lazarus, who is chairing the Committee. Please feel free to call the members of the Committee with your suggestions for the development of the Institute.

The Committee has organized itself into subcommittees to study and to prepare draft proposals for various aspects of the Institute. Each of these subcommittees includes three members of the Planning Committee and at least three other persons selected from the University community at large. Membership rosters are available on the web site. The subcommittees are:

  • Mission, Vision, and Structure, which will recommend a vision statement, a mission statement, and an organizational proposal, as well as maintain the web site;
  • Curriculum, which will present options for the academic component for the Institute;
  • Program, which will recommend the kinds of conferences and public events the Institute will sponsor;
  • Inter-Institutional Relations, which will research the activities of similar centers around the world and recommend strategic relationships between USD’s Institute and other centers with complementary programs; and
  • Building, which will make recommendations for the use of space in the Institute’s building.

The Planning Committee has met four times thus far, and has scheduled additional meetings on August 21, and September 4. The subcommittees will meet throughout the summer. In September the Committee will conduct a retreat with facilitators from other peace centers to synthesize the proposals of the subcommittees. The Committee is also planning to sponsor a conference in the spring and would like to hear program suggestions for this conference from as broad a section of USD faculty, administrators, staff, and students as possible. The vision statement and mission statement will be available, at least in draft form, in the fall to help guide those interested in making suggestions.

Planning for the Institute’s building is at an early stage. The Committee’s first objective is to determine what kind of spaces are necessary to accommodate Institute and related activities. The Building Subcommittee is charged at this time only with proposing how space will be used, not with selecting architects, overseeing design or determining space allocations within the building. These activities will follow the University’s normal procedures for new construction, which include Trustee review and approval at several stages. I hope that the proposal for use of space will be completed by the early fall, so the Trustees might proceed with architect selection and preliminary design before the end of the year. Such a schedule would allow us to complete a detailed design for ground breaking next spring and for use of the building at the beginning of the 2000-2001 academic year.

Mrs. Kroc’s generous gift challenges all of us to think seriously about how to be peacemakers in our own life and work. I hope you will share your thoughts and ideas about how to do this with those who are actively planning the programs of the Institute for Peace & Justice.

* The Peace & Justice website has changed URL since this message was published.