Swarthmore College Department of

Peace & Conflict Studies Blog

2024 Year in Review

Greetings from the Chair

Dear Peace and Conflict Studies Community,

Congratulations on completing the 2023-2024 academic year! It has been an honor to serve as Chair of our department this year, and I am so grateful for all the students, staff, and faculty members who make up our vibrant community at Swarthmore.

Israa Al-Helli’s invaluable contributions as Administrative Assistant and L Fahn-Lai’s talents as Communications Consultant have kept our events and affairs running smoothly. Michael Wilson-Becerril has been teaching exciting courses and continues to run his Peace Praxis lab. Lee Smithey has been on a much-deserved sabbatical, though he has made appearances and offered support at critical junctures. This past January, we were able to welcome Sahr Conway-Lanz as the Curator of the Peace Collection. We are grateful that Sahr has joined our faculty steering committee—which also includes cherished colleagues from all over campus.

As has become a tradition, the Lang Center continues to offer generous co-sponsorship for our events, and we are thankful to Ben Berger and Jennifer Magee in particular for their partnership, including with their Peace and Conflict Studies course on engaged scholarship.

We are deeply proud of this year’s graduating majors (Sophia Becker, Anyssa El Manfaa, Elisa Estrella, Ariza Nanji, Jorge Padilla, Nora Sweeney, Alexandra Thomas, Nicolas-Bilal Urick, Giselle Vigil) and minors (Deborah Bergel Aquique, Harrison Kim, Luca Marcelli, Lucia Navarro, Sarah Zemelman). It was heartwarming to see our very own Nora Sweeney as the student speaker and Nicolas-Bilal Urick presented with the Lang Award at Commencement, both of them graduating with Highest Honors.

We hope that all of you will stay in touch with the department for years to come. And I look forward to welcoming the rising juniors and seniors to campus this fall—and to meeting with prospective majors and minors among the rising first-year and sophomore classes.

In the meantime, please enjoy this collage of events and announcements as a time capsule of our departmental events and milestones over the past academic year. Wishing everyone a rejuvenating summer!

Warmest wishes,
Sa’ed Atshan