PEACE AND JUSTICE ACADEMIC PROGRAMS

Students sit around a table in a discussion

A major or minor in Peace and Justice education equips you to become the person the world needs you to be.

The interdisciplinary curriculum of the Center for Peace and Justice Education is rooted in Villanova’s Augustinian tradition of education in the service of peace and social justice, with particular emphasis on the poor and marginalized in society. Students are prepared to understand the essential elements of a moral and just society, reflect on models for socially responsible resolution of injustice and conflict, and learn the necessary skills to be advocates for a just and peaceful world.

WHY PEACE AND JUSTICE STUDIES?

Engage in content across disciplines

Across multiple disciplines and methodologies, you will discover the patterns of conflict, power, privilege, and oppression. You will unpack the true demands of dignity, justice, liberation and peace. You will engage the creative work of persons and movements who have demonstrated that change is possible and, indeed, indispensable.

Probe the difficult questions

We learn in small classrooms filled with new voices and perspectives, and we learn beyond the classroom as well. Our professors bring deep knowledge to help you ask difficult questions of our world and of yourself. They skillfully create the safe space you need to begin to answer those questions.

Experience transformational learning

The interdisciplinary program of Peace and Justice is an opportunity to transform yourself and the world around you. In spaces informed by scholars and practitioners alike, you are challenged to form ideas that matter and to make commitments that will set a trajectory for your life.

RELATED PROGRAMS

The Peace and Justice major has an academic partnership with the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies (GIS), offering academic programs in six area studies, Gender and Women's Studies and Peace and Justice.

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WHO WE ARE

JAEDEN ARISTILDE ’22 CLAS

“During my freshman year at Villanova, I struggled a bit with finding my identity,” says Jaeden Aristilde ’22 CLAS, a Criminology and Peace and Justice Studies minor. She decided to attend a Villanova Social Justice Experience trip to San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, where she learned about the lives of people of color living at the US-Mexico border. “I learned a lot from the Villanova students I met on the trip and from the communities we visited,” she says. “I realized I wanted to dismantle the system that historically works against the justice of people who look just like me—and to pursue criminal defense and civil/human rights law.”

LILY BUI ’21 CLAS

With majors in Biology as well as Peace and Justice Studies, Lily Bui ’21 CLAS hopes to one day combine her passions for science and social justice in a career as a pediatrician. A Presidential Scholar and first-generation college student, Lily was chair of Villanova’s Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week (HHAW) and led Villanova’s chapter of Back on my Feet, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that combats homelessness through running and community support. “HHAW gives me the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with the Villanova community and advocate for systemic changes.”

EMILY FELSENTHAL ’09 CLAS

Emily Felsenthal ’09 CLAS is founder and executive director of Victor’s Vision. As a student at Villanova, Felsenthal spent considerable time living and volunteering throughout Latin America, and after spending a week in Chulucanas, Peru in 2009, Felsenthal made a personal commitment to better the lives of the children she’d met there. In the spring of her senior year, she started Victor’s Vision, a nonprofit educational program that supports impoverished Peruvian youth in their pursuit of higher education.