Peace Studies conference returns

On Tuesday, the Peace Studies department hosted the 33rd Peace Studies Conference, which returned after a brief hiatus due to COVID.

The conference, titled “Partnership Equity in Global Health,” displayed the intersection between peace studies and public health while highlighting the emerging global health minor at CSB+SJU.

It featured four separate events: two panels, one featuring current and former CSB+SJU students, while the other centered around partnerships for health with the Somali community in Central Minnesota, highlighted by CSB alumnae Hudda Ibrahim ’13 and other local leaders of community organizations.

There were also two speakers, each coming to CSB+SJU from significant distances. Megan Christofield, a project director and senior technical advisor at Jhpiego, a global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, spoke on “Innovation in Global Health: The Equity Imperative.” Dr. Lisa Adams, associate dean for global health, director of the Center for Global Health Equity and professor of medicine in the Infectious Disease and International Health section at Dartmouth, gave the keynote address.

Attendees were struck by the purposeful conversation at all four events.

“My professor encouraged us to attend this conference, and I really enjoyed how it highlighted some things and issues that are going on in the nearby area, which is always good to be aware of,” CSB sophomore Brenna Behrens said.

This is the first official year of the global health minor, although its inception has been in the works for years. The conference served as a unique opportunity to expand the minor’s visibility among the CSB+SJU student body and provide current global health minors with the ability to connect to local and national experts in the field.

“Both Ibrahim and Adams spent a lot of time with our global health minors, and I know our students were just so fired up and renewed by the whole experience. By connecting with people who have charted the path before them, it really inspired our global health students and provided a sort of kickoff to the minor,” professor Jeff Anderson said.

CSB junior Belle Handt, a global health minor who served as a moderator for the afternoon event, agreed.

“I thought it was really impactful listening to [the panelists’] perspectives, because they all had different ones…As a nursing major, it was incredibly interesting listening to Fatuma talk about helping people during the hands-on process of childbirth and all of the care that it takes,” Handt said.

Handt was chosen to serve as the moderator after being named as one of the Global Health Fellows in the CSB+SJU Summer Leadership Fellowship (SLF) cohort this summer. She worked for WellShare International, a nonprofit health organization based in Minneapolis.

The expansion of the SLF Global Health Fellows program and other interest around global health issues, resulted professor Ellen Block leading a global health summer dialogue group, which included the Global Health Fellows and other SLF recipients who had an internship related to global health and were interested.

Members of the group, which met a few times throughout the summer, hope to continue these conversations on campus this semester via the Global Health Affairs club.