Message from the Acting Rector
At the end of December 2006, Julia Marton-Lefèvre, our former Rector, left us to take up her new duties as Director General of IUCN (The World Conservation Union). The Council of the University has launched the process to select a new Rector. In the meantime, it has asked me to act as Rector. I have accepted this acting appointment with great humility, conscious of the challenge it represents.
In the months to come the entire staff will work very hard to ensure that this transition period will be as smooth as possible. In particular, we will concentrate on successfully completing the current academic year, on finalizing some important negotiations with the donor community, and on managing prudently the financial resources entrusted to us by both the public and private donors.
The entire staff looks forward to some exciting developments in 2007. For example, we will be launching on 10 April our new International Peace Studies Dual Campus Master Programme specially designed for students from the Asia-Pacific region. This is a 19-month intensive academic programme, where the students undertake courses at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines as well as at the San José UPEACE headquarters in Costa Rica. This project, which will be fully funded by The Nippon Foundation for a 5-year period, will allow the University to establish a strong presence in the region.
The new year also started on a very positive note with the arrival, on our campus, of a new group of sixteen students registered in the Dual Master in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development, after their first semester at American University in Washington, DC.
In addition, UPEACE welcomed fourteen students who have joined our regular students for the UPEACE Institute (see below).
I would like to wish our students, alumni, staff, partners and friends across the world a successful and happy New Year 2007!
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UPEACE Institute began on January 8th, 2007.
On January 8th, 2007 UPEACE began the UPEACE Institute on its second edition, with fourteen participants from 8 countries (Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States). Six of these participants were enrolled through the UPEACE Centre for Executive and Professional Education.
(http://www.centre.upeace.org/)
The Institute participants took part in an orientation session the same day. Georges Tsaï, Acting Rector, Victoria Fontan, Academic Director of the Institute, Laura Arroyo, Institute Coordinator, Antonella Alpízar, Department of Academic Administration, Manuel Cerdas and Oscar Morera, IT Department, and student Thomas Klompmaker, participated in the orientation session, welcoming the students and providing them with important information about UPEACE.
After the orientation session, a small welcoming reception was held at the Cafeteria, where UPEACE Institute participants had an opportunity to interact with other UPEACE students.
The following courses are offered as part of the UPEACE Institute this year:
- Hunger, Famine and Food Security
- Thinking the World, Changing the World: the Public-Private Distinction in Social, Legal, and Political Thought
- Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector: Making it Happen
- Democracia y Desarrollo en América Latina: Temas Contemporáneos
- War and Film
- Multiculturalism, Gender, and Migration
- Media Challenges for UN Peacekeeping Operations
- Theatre and Peace Building
- Nonprofit Leadership - Maximizing your Impact
- Environmental Security Assessment: Principle and Practice
Please visit http://www.upeace.org/academic/training/institute/
courses.cfm for detailed information on each course.
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UPEACE featured in International Media
***An article on the UPEACE Dual Campus International Peace Studies Programme, was published in one of Southeast Asia's leading magazines, Asia Views, in its November-December 2006 issue.
***On 2 January 2007 an advertisement mentioning UPEACE was published in several Dutch newspapers (by the Dutch Postcode Lottery)
***An article on UPEACE was also published in the
UN Chronicle Online Edition
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UPEACE Professor receives one seat in the Steering Committee of the National Forest Program Facility
Professor Ronnie de Camino, Professor of the Department of Environment, Peace and Security was offered one of the eleven seats in the Steering Committee of the National Forest Program Facility.
The National Forest Program Facility is an innovative partnership to ease the implementation of national forest programmes in developing countries through capacity development and information sharing. Particular emphasis is placed on empowerment of civil society and enhanced participation of a broad range of stakeholders. For more information, please visit http://www.nfp-facility.org.
Congratulations to our professor!
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Brown Bag session: Military Forces in 21st Century Peace Operations. No Job for a Soldier?
On Tuesday January 9, 2007, James V. Arbuckle presented his book entitled Military Forces in 21st Century Peace Operations. No Job for a Soldier? This book was published by Taylor & Francis/Routledge in August 2006. Mr. Arbuckle noted that since the end of the cold war, the international community has been doing badly in coordinating peace operations and suggested an antidote to this problem: Joint civil-military efforts. He recognized the importance of such joint interventions to the extent that, he cautions, they should be recognized as worthwhile from the planning phase of peace operations. He suggested that prospective civilians and soldiers must be trained and educated together.
James Arbuckle is a former 2Lt in the Royal Canadian Regiment. Since 1995 he has been a member of the Faculty of the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Nova Scotia. From 1999 to 2003, he was a member of the Capacity Building and Training Section of the OSCE in Vienna. From 2001 to 2003 he was engaged in Track II diplomacy discussions concerning the implementation and monitoring of a possible peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, as the Military Advisor to a Canadian Ambassador who led the Canadian team in the discussions.
Mr. Arbuckle has written several articles on military issues for professional publications, and a book entitled The Level Killing Fields of Yugoslavia: An Observer Returns, published by the Pearson Press in 1999. In addition, he was the English copyeditor for the Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations, published by Kluwer Law International in 2002.
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From 18 - 20 December a group meeting on Peace Education was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the Hilton Hotel.
Five UPEACE alumni, all from class of 2005 were present. From left to right: Emmanuel Samara, Onen Christine Harriet, Assouan Gbesso, Tsion Abebe, Alphonse Nshimiyimana.
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UPEACE Institute Visiting Professors
HUNGER, FAMINE AND FOOD SECURITY
Prof. Reg Noble 
Prof. Noble is a University instructor specialized in food security and community development and a natural resource management consultant working on community development and food security issues for international development organizations such FAO, DANIDA, DFID, GTZ, OXFAM, UNESCO, UNDP, etc.
In 1997, he became a founding member of a nonprofit association of development professionals, the International Support Group (ISG) and was on the board of the association from 1999 to 2005. Reg Noble is also a research associate with the Centre for Studies in Food Security at Ryerson University (Toronto), and teaches two postgraduate courses entitled Research Methods and Evaluation in Food Security and Community Development and Food Security.
Prof. Noble has undertaken his work mostly in Africa (he lived for 17 years in Malawi), dealing with development issues such as decentralization of agricultural planning in Uganda; impact of integrated rural development on rural livelihoods in Ethiopia and ecologically-based smallholder farming development in Malawi. Reg Noble holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, awarded in 1981 from the Chelsea College of Science, University of London, UK.
MEDIA CHALLENGES FOR UN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS
Dr. Ingrid A. Lehmann
Dr. Lehmann was born in Berlin and educated both in Germany (Dipl. Pol. and Doctorate, University of Berlin) and the United States (M.A., University of Minnesota). She worked at the United Nations Secretariat for over 25 years, most recently as Director in the UN Department of Public Information in Vienna, Athens and Washington, D.C. Prior to these positions, she served in two UN peacekeeping missions and in the Department for Disarmament Affairs. She teaches international communication at the University of Salzburg, Austria, and she is the author of a book, “Peacekeeping and Public Information – Caught in the Crossfire”, as well as of many articles on international relations and strategic communication.
THEATRE AND PEACE BUILDING
David Korish
David Korish is an Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at the National University of Costa Rica and co-director of Teatro Abya Yala, an independent theatre company based in Costa Rica since 1991. He received his B.A. in English Literature from Columbia University (1984) and Masters in Fine Arts with emphasis in Theatre Directing from Carnegie-Mellon University (1989). He was recipient of a Fulbright Specialist Scholarship for Professional Exchange in 1991, has taught at the University level and conducted professional workshops worldwide, including Brazil, the United States, Guatemala, Belize, and Germany, and has directed professionally in England, Scotland, Belgium, Denmark and the United States.
ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY ASSESSMENT: PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE
Dr Max. Castro
Dr. Castro is associate director of research and studies at the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability. He is co-author of This Land Is our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami (University of California Press, 2003) and editor of Free Markets, Open Societies, Closed Borders? (North-South Center Press, 1999). He has taught and lectured widely and written numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews on international migration, Latin America, and Latinos in the United States. Most recently, he has conducted research on environmental security in Latin America with a focus on the Dominican Republic. Dr. Castro has published columns in major U.S. and Latin American newspapers and has appeared frequently as an expert commentator in the media. From 1994 to 2003, he was senior research associate at the North-South Center of the University of Miami. He received the MA and PhD (sociology) degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In teaching this course, also collaborated Professors Jeffrey Stark and Mersie Ejigu.
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Orientation Session for NRSD Students 2007
On January 3rd the University for Peace welcomed the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development Class of 2007 to its Costa Rica campus, for the first of three days of Orientation for the new students.
Dr. Victor Valle, who was acting as Rector, welcomed the new students and gave some introductory remarks. Dr. Amr Abdalla, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, spoke about the UPEACE mission and the reach of the entire UPEACE system. Finally, Dr. Rolain Borel, Head of the Department of Environment, Peace and Security, introduced the main features of the natural resources and environmental security programs.
The second part of this session was a panel discussion on Costa Rica's history, culture and role in the world. Panelists included Jim Barborak, Director of Protected Areas and Conservation Corridors, Center for Biodiversity Conservation, Mexico and Central America Conservation International, and Gilberto Monge, Mayor-elect of the Mora County, the home of the University for Peace. This Panel discussion was followed by questions and answers session, and a lunch with the speakers.
The first day of Orientation was closed by a walk through the UPEACE park to "El Mirador", where everyone enjoyed the beautiful view.
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Cultures and Learning - from Violence towards Peace – “a sensitive and exciting course”.
By Yaya Bio Bawa
Peace Education Student
From 4 – 15 December , the students of the Peace Education Programme joined their fellows of the Gender and Peace Building Programme for a joint course entitled “Cultures and Learning - from Violence towards Peace”. The instructor was Prof. Mohammed Abu-Nimer, an expert on conflict resolution and dialogue for peace, and current associate professor at the American University’s School of International Service in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in Washington, DC.
For two weeks, we shared information with much emphasis on the basic assumption that “Humans can learn and change their acquired behaviors and beliefs”. The purpose of the course is “to develop further understanding of the role of cultural, ethnic, religious, gender, linguistic and other forms of sub-identities in creating peaceful environment.” The instructor adopted a problem-based training that was meant to engage students in structuring solutions to real life, culture relevant and contextualized situations. This methodology promoted student interaction and teamwork, thereby enhancing the existing interpersonal relations among the students of the two programmes.
Applying critical thinking to alternating lectures and discussion forums and collaborative research for group presentations, students became actively engaged in meaningful learning. The gathering increased our knowledge that we are different, but much less different than we may think. Therefore, among us, an appreciation and acceptance of both commonalities and differences are essential to effective human relationships. The human race of different cultures requires mutual respect and some understanding of one another's culture.
At the end of the course, which I personally found to be at the same time sensitive and exciting, we, students of both PE and GPB Programmes, reaffirmed our commitment to sharing our peace values, to setting peaceful examples and to multiplying our efforts toward a culturally diverse pluralism, a culture that promotes mutual respect, acceptance, and teamwork among people who are diverse in age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, class, religious beliefs, and other perceived differences.
We left for the break with wishes of “Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year” from everyone to all.
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