Message from the Director

charity butcher
Welcome to the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development. The School was founded in 2017 and encompasses three primary entities: The Center for Conflict Management, a Master of Science in Conflict Management (MSCM), and a PhD in International Conflict Management.

The Center for Conflict Management works locally and globally to promote peace and conflict resolution by providing training in conflict management skills. Thousands of individuals have benefited from the programming provided by the Center.

Our Master of Science in Conflict Management (MSCM) program, one of the first of its kind in the country, provides students with training that emphasizes the intersection of theory, research, and practice. Founded in 2000, the program has graduated hundreds of students who have pursued careers in courts, government, education, human resources, health care, law enforcement, technology, international peacebuilding, humanitarian non-profits, and more.

Third, our PhD in International Conflict Management was launched in 2010 as KSU’s first PhD Program and the only one of its kind in the Southeast. Our degree is designed to meet the global demand for scholar-practitioners and approximately half of our PhD students come from outside the United States. Given our scholar-practitioner focus, we have students both in academia in tenure-track or teaching positions and practitioner roles within the international peacebuilding and development field.

The core strength of our School is our faculty members. Faculty are engaged in real-world problems, from supporting the work of the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution, training professionals in courts, assisting businesses with generational succession, contributing to programs of non-profits, supporting governments in policy design, and conducting research and program evaluation on critical global problems.

As a School, we are committed to promoting peace within our communities and around the world. We invite you to join us in our efforts!

Sincerely,

Charity Butcher, Ph.D.
Director, School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development

Our Mission

Vision

The School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development endeavors to enhance the capacity of people and organizations to advance conflict-related discourse, enact constructive change, and inspire peace and development.

Mission Statement

The mission of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development is four-fold:

    (1) to prepare engaged, interdisciplinary change-makers with rigorous academic and practice skills for peacemaking and development in domestic and international contexts;
    (2) to produce cutting edge, policy-relevant research on conflict, peace, and development;
    (3) to enact peacebuilding, conflict management, and development programming and practice in a variety of contexts across disciplines, sectors, and levels of analysis; and, ultimately
    (4) to inspire peace and promote positive change.

Goals

The School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development aims to advance our mission, as well as the mission of Kennesaw State University, by working toward these goals:

    Providing educational opportunities that will give our graduates the maximum options for employment;
    Creating a shared sense of purpose among faculty, staff, and students engaged in conflict management, peacebuilding, and development locally and globally;
    Contributing (through research, teaching, practice and engagement) to the prevention, reduction, elimination, resolution and transformation of violent conflict both domestically and internationally;
    Developing strategies and tools to systematically analyze, understand, explain and predict conflict and the mechanisms that contribute to its solution, including the use of nonviolence to address injustice; and,
    Making the Norman J. Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Kennesaw State University a true first-choice destination for conflict management, peacebuilding, and development scholarship, education, and practice in the United States and across the globe.

About KSU

Kennesaw State is a comprehensive university located on two suburban campuses in Kennesaw and Marietta, northwest of metro Atlanta. We are making an impact across the region, the nation and around the world. As the third largest university in Georgia, Kennesaw State has nearly 43,000 students enrolled in over 180 undergraduate, master’s, doctoral degree and certificate programs.