What Is the Heravi Peace Institute?

The world needs more people in it committed to creating peace, and we aim to empower students with the skills needed to bring about social change. The Heravi Peace Institute at Utah State University prepares students to enter the workforce already adept at cultural peacebuilding, conflict management, nonprofit work, and the power to create intentional relationships and enact change in their communities. The institute, housed in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, is an academic program that supports student internships and other experiential learning, faculty and student research activities, and ongoing programming and public outreach in the field of peacebuilding through the proactive implementation of skills in a variety of settings and institutions to practice nonviolent collaboration and transformative conflict at the personal, interpersonal family, community, intergroup, national, and international levels.

Students from majors across the university earn credits in five main areas of emphasis: Global Peacebuilding, Interfaith Leadership, Conflict Management, Leadership and Diplomacy, and Nonprofit Organization and Social Entrepreneurship. Students may also gain skills through participation in the Conversational Space Makers program.

This uniquely interdisciplinary approach combines coursework from history, political science, communication studies, religious studies, and others to equip students with vital and marketable skills alongside strategic and creative approaches to conflict. Graduates leave as thoughtful professionals and active citizens ready to help build peaceful and transformative societies.

Learn more at https://chass.usu.edu/peace-institute/