Honor Student, Konrad Hodgman, active as a Peace Scholar for the Ashland Center for Nonviolence

Junior Konrad Hodgman a member of the AU Honors Program and Peace Scholar in the Ashland Center for Nonviolence (ACN) shares his thoughts on being an active member of the ACN and invites you to read his blog post: Reflections on a Habit of Forgiveness in light of the recent current events to learn more about the nonviolence movement and what peace means to the members of the ACN.

Hello, I’m Konrad - the Treasurer of the Honors Executive Board and a Junior at AU! I am pleased to have the chance to tell you all about my involvement in an incredibly valuable campus organization, the Ashland Center for Nonviolence, or ACN. Hopefully, some of you have had the opportunity to attend one of our public events in the past few years. My first time attending an ACN event was the fall semester of my freshman year, and the topic was a discussion between community faith leaders regarding this nation’s often disappointing immigration situation. As a Political Science major I was hooked immediately, and I decided to get more involved with ACN. I learned that the group covers a staggering number of subjects from local, household issues to international struggles for a more peaceful planet.

My role in ACN for the past year has largely been as a Peace Scholar. This program emphasizes the ACN commitment to building the next generation of peacemakers. Open to students from Ashland University, the young program involves 5-10 students from a wide variety of majors. During the 2019-2020 academic year, Peace Scholars took part in multiple “Food for Thought” discussions with like-minded community members to think critically about select topics and broaden their knowledge base. We also traveled to the city of Dayton, location of the 1995 Peace Accords to end the war in Bosnia. We toured the Dayton International Peace Museum, one of the only establishments in the world dedicated solely to providing an educational experience about nonviolence.

ACN is working to provide more opportunities for students to get involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization, and one of these opportunities has been to include certain Peace Scholars in the planning work that happens through the ACN Steering Committee. As one of these new student representatives, I have begun to take more of an involved role in the group than I had previously.

For the coming semester, folks on campus can keep a lookout for a handful of events hosted by us. We hope to be able to open our events up in a new format that allows people to be safe and socially-distanced. What form this will take - whether on Zoom, outdoors, or in a large room on campus - is still up in the air, and I do not have the authority to give you a definitive answer. One thing that I can tell you for certain is that we are now keeping our blog consistently updated with new, thought-provoking posts after a recent period of inactivity. I invite you to take a look at our blog, and I hope you take the time to read not just my recent post, but many of the recent commentaries on current events, the nonviolence movement, and what peace means to individuals within our diverse group of members. Furthermore, if you like what you see you can join our mailing list to be updated about future posts!