During summer 2024, the Office of the Provost approved a new professional certificate program in peace studies. The first of its kind at the college, the Ithaca College Peace Studies (ICPS) program will be the first formal affiliation between the college and Ithaca’s Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies, which serves as the Dalai Lama’s official monastery of North America.

Co-founders Eric Steinschneider, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and Eric Machan Howd, director of extended studies, developed the certificate program with the goal of teaching people how to engage in nonviolent conflict resolution. Steinschneider said he hopes that in doing so, young people will be able to usher in a new global age without aggression and war.

“The world is on fire,” Steinschneider said. “We need to chart a new path. … We need bright young people to think about what the future is going to look like: a peaceful, sustainable future in which human beings can flourish and prosper.”

According to the Peace & Justice Studies Association, of the 18 colleges and universities in New York state that offer peace studies programs, only three offer professional certificate programs. Unlike majors or minors, which require a much longer time commitment, certificate programs allow students to learn specific professional skills in a focused area of study – typically in under a year. 

Howd said it was vital to the vision of the program that it be offered as a certificate program rather than a major or minor, because non-matriculated students will also be able to earn a certificate. This will include community members, high school students and students enrolled at a different college or university.

“I not only see [ICPS] being a kind of pillar to what Ithaca College is about in the future, but I see it also being what the city and town is about,” Howd said.

The partnership with Namgyal Monastery will serve as a connecting force between the college and the broader Ithaca community. When Namgyal monks began the tradition of creating sand mandalas on campus in 2022, Steinschneider said the monastery sought to forge a formal relationship with the college.

Steinschneider made it clear that although the partnership exists, ICPS is not meant only for religious people. He said the monastery is there as a resource for students who want to learn about Tibetan Buddhist traditions or who want to access the Library and Learning Center, which features writings from historical Buddhist and non-Buddhist promoters of peace.

 “The monastery itself and the Dalai Lama himself have been very explicit that promoting peace is not a specifically Buddhist concern or initiative,” Steinschneider said. 

Once the certificate program is officially offered, which Howd said will most likely be in Fall 2026, Ithaca College students and non-matriculated students will be able to register for it through the Office of Professional Studies. Once enrolled, all participants will be required to take an Introduction to Peace Studies course taught by Steinschneider. Ithaca College students must also choose two electives related to peace and conflict resolution, which Howd said will fall under a range of disciplines, including but not limited to philosophy and religion, politics, writing and psychology.

In conjunction with these courses, all participants must attend a number of “peacemaker events” in or outside Ithaca, which Howd said could include events hosted by the Namgyal Monastery or other peace-focused groups. The last component to the program involves earning “peace points” by actively engaging in and promoting peace in the community, which Howd and Steinschneider said might take the form of volunteering or meditating at the monastery.  

Howd said he expects the program will take between nine to 12 months to complete. Once a certificate is earned, he said the recipient will have a professional advantage over other applicants when trying to work for peace-oriented nonprofit organizations, and even governmental jobs related to diplomacy.

“Having something like this in your back pocket, I think, makes you a differentiator from others who may be diplomats, who may not be going in this direction [of study],” Howd said.

Junior Lucca Bane, a communication strategy and design major, will be part of the ICPS planning committee, which is a group of students, faculty and staff who will help Steinschneider and Howd flesh out the details of the program. She also plans on completing the program, which she said will benefit her professionally and personally.

“I want to get into philanthropy in the future, so for me, a certificate like [this] would be not only very rewarding in the career aspect, but just for personal growth,” Bane said. “I think when people have [these] certificates, they can have more accountability.”

First-year student religious studies major Madison VanDerLinde will also serve on the committee and participate in the program. She said that her past volunteering in hospice centers and nursing homes inspired her interest in peace studies. 

“I come across a lot of people with a lot of different religions and beliefs and different cultural backgrounds,” VanDerLinde said. “So I’d really like to be able to apply a peace certificate to help people get along, even just in a small sense, like understanding people’s differences and things like that.”

Looking toward the future, Steinschneider and Howd envision the college becoming an epicenter for peace promotion.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if [the college] had a peace studies center here on campus, where we could really bring in outside speakers and really have something more dynamic and institutionalized here at the college?” Steinschneider said. “We’re not there yet, obviously, but that’s something to work towards.”