The National Peace Academy, Where Peacebuilders Go to Grow: Entering Phase 3

By Dot Maver, Michael H. Abkin and Kristin Famula

The National Peace Academy stands at the leading edge of the long arc of the dream that there would someday be a national peace academy in this country and countries around the world. That arc stretches all the way back to the Iroquois Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace in the 12th century and includes USA Founding Fathers George Washington, Benjamin Rush, and Benjamin Banneker. Since that time, there has been a consistent call, in government and civil society, for a government department or office of peace and for a peace academy.

In March 2009, that dream was realized at NPA’s Stakeholder Design Summit, held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended by almost 200 practitioners, educators, and other peacebuilders in civil society, business, and government from around the world. Formal incorporation as a nonprofit came 13 months later, and IRS 501(c)(3) status was granted less than 5 months after that. A full chronology of the origins of the National Peace Academy, a statement of the historical context of and motivation for its current founding, a description of the stakeholder design process, and a list of its founders, is available on the NPA website.

The Earth Charter’s definition of peace underlies all of NPA’s programming. This definition illuminates at least five interrelated and interdependent spheres of peace and right relationship: personal, social, political, institutional, and ecological. All that NPA does is designed to help learners nurture and build peace holistically in their daily lives in all these spheres.

Within the context of the five spheres of peace, the work of the National Peace Academy is guided by the following principles:

1. Programmatic holism.  Encompassing peace education, peace research, peace policy, and peace action.

2. Holistic and comprehensive learning. Educating the whole person for full participation in life as a peacebuilder, personally and professionally, giving attention to all five spheres.

3. Peace pedagogy.  Focusing on non-hierarchical and student-centered learning.

4. Positive peace. Giving special emphasis to positive peace, i.e., peace that is observable in the world (as a complement to peace defined by what is absent from the world, e.g., war and other forms of violence).

5. Diversity of peace perspectives.  Recognizing the special contributions to peacebuilding provided by the arts, sports, the sciences, and spiritual traditions.

6. Peace is everyone’s business.  Making peacelearning accessible and available to people at all levels of social organization (from the individual to the corporate and governmental) and all socioeconomic segments of society.

Since its founding, NPA’s programs have spawned many ripples around the world. In addition, NPA USA is a founder and active member of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace community. There are now Ministries of Peace in Nepal, Costa Rica, Solomon Islands, and Bougainville Papua New Guinea, and an Office of Peace in South Sudan and Kyrgyzstan. Peace institutes and sister peace academies, organizations or institutes exist in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Germany, Ghana, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Romania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

With that background, the National Peace Academy is now at a crossroads, exploring new directions that, after five years of successful programming, can have a broader and deeper impact on our national character and culture and also attain financial and institutional sustainability.

Thus, the Trustees, Board, and Staff of the National Peace Academy met earlier this month at the historic Inn at Bath in Bath, Maine, for a three-day retreat. We arrived with our hearts filled and touched by the outpouring of support and encouragement expressed by the NPA community in response to our recent message about the crossroads where, at this moment, we find ourselves.

Indeed, we identified three phases of NPA’s development as a peacebuilding institution. The first phase of NPA was focused on experimentation and exploration – building a new organization and prototyping programmatic initiatives. The second phase has been one of self-reflection and evaluation –an honest look at what has and hasn’t worked and where we have yet to focus to fulfill the promise of our purpose. We now enter a third phase of intention and extension – developing and demonstrating the steps towards fulfilling the vision of a culture of peace in the United States.

We come out of the retreat with a reaffirmation of our personal and collective commitment to the NPA and its focus on positive peacebuilding in the context of the five spheres of peace. Perhaps the most significant ‘change’ is that the team realized the present infrastructure simply could not hold the depth and breadth envisioned and offered at NPA’s Global Design Summit in 2009. Thus, the team opened to a simpler yet more expansive model that will invite and enable participation and shared responsibility of peacebuilders throughout the USA and that will shine a much deserved light on the vast network of peacebuilders already at work in this country and around the world.  

Stay tuned!

Dorothy J. Maver, Ph.D. is an educator and peacebuilder whose keynote is inspiring cooperation on behalf of the common good. Dot is Project Director with Kosmos Associates, and a board member of the National Peace Academy USA, Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding and Nicholas Roerich Museum.

Michael H. Abkin, Ph.D., serves as chairman on the Board of Directors of the National Peace Academy, on the advisory council of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, and on the volunteer staff of Nine Gates Mystery School. He previously worked for a culture of peace with Peace Partnership International, The Peace Alliance and its Campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace, and the Foundation for Global Community. In his earlier 34-year technical career, he applied systems analysis and simulation modeling for agricultural development and air transportation. Mike enjoys time with family (especially granddaughter Coco!), traveling in the world, walking in nature, and musing in prose and poetry.

Kristin Famula is the new President of the National Peace Academy, having recently served as its Director of Programs.  Kristin also spent the past seven years in Colorado as the director of religious education at a Unitarian Universalist church. There she created innovative educational opportunities, including an all-ages program dedicated to service and social justice.  Kristin also cocreated “Full Community”, a philosophy and vision for multigenerational congregations intentionally integrating the visions of all members into the community. In addition to her work developing peacebuilding and religious education programs, she also serves as a program leader for the Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice and as the Director of Create Meaning Northern Nevada.