Kent State University is expanding its Center for Applied Conflict Management and refining its mission.
The center, which used to be under the university’s political science department, will now be called the School of Peace and Conflict Studies and will have its own full-time faculty.
The school’s director, Patrick Coy, says the change will give Kent State a bigger profile for its work in conflict management and social change.
“So we’re not known just for conflict. We’re known for the constructive management of conflict, the constructive conflict responses to conflict and to violence and to war, and to bring about more sustainable peace with justice. And this is one of the reasons why we did this.”
The school, originally known as the Center for Peaceful Change, was created in 1971 following the killing of four Kent State students by the National Guard the year before.
