Campus News

To support Afghan refugees needing to relaunch their careers in the United States, George Mason University is inviting scholars and researchers who have recently left Afghanistan to request an academic appointment as visiting scholars.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has not seen peace for more than three decades, but in November 2021, George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution helped the country take a leap in a hopeful direction.

In the province of South Kivu, the school gathered representatives from 21 armed groups, the Congolese government, military, police, intelligence services, religious leaders, civil society groups, and peace advocates. Not only did everyone discuss a path toward peacebuilding, but they also signed a peace accord to solidify it.

Following decades of war and genocide in Sudan, in April 2019 a mass movement from civilians overthrew the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. As the country transitions to democratic rule, George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution is working to empower civilians to use their voice to impact the future.

The Mason team, working with partners in Sudan, has been interviewing and video recording oral histories of 100 Sudanese civilians who have lived through both war and peace. Their answers, which expand upon their experiences, also include their vision for a just Sudanese society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it so most museums are closed, but students and researchers at George Mason University’s John Mitchell, Jr. Program (JMJP) are working hard to create a digital one that sheds light on civil rights pioneers with largely untold stories.

Thanks to an $8,000 grant from Virginia Humanities, the team is building a digital exhibit on the life of anti-lynching advocate John Mitchell, Jr., and his colleagues Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells. The grant is part of $181,500 in funding awarded to 25 nonprofits.

George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution will host its Spring 2021 Peace Week virtually March 22-26, focusing on how to foster anti-racism approaches in the field of conflict resolution in the United States and around the world.

The eastern region of Ukraine has been an intense battleground since 2014, when Russia controversially annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and invaded the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. Though a ceasefire was called, it has been violated daily. More than 10,000 people have died and roughly 1.6 million are registered as internally displaced people (IDP).

But a step toward hope and peace may be on the horizon, thanks to George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and their new project funded by a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

Of the more than 4,000 lynchings of Black Americans that took place in the United States between 1865 and 1950, at least 43 cases occurred in Maryland.
George Mason University’s John Mitchell Jr. Program (JMJP), housed within the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, has been helping research several of these cases since 2019 to support the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In October, they received news that they will be taking their research to the next level, thanks to a $300,000 Department of Justice grant they helped secure for the commission.

The Political Leadership Academy will be one of the Carter School’s primary means of outreach to policy-making circles and a direct contribution toward bi-partisan decision making in our country

The Carter School has partnered with Restorative Arlington, a new initiative aimed at incorporating restorative justice practices into Arlington County’s public schools, legal system and community.