The Spirit of Peace Conference Schedule (subject to change)

Conference Schedule (subject to change)

Location: All sessions will be held in the Ashland University Dauch College of Business

Friday, March 20, 7pm

Inter-Religious Dialogue Panel  

Room 115    

• Semiha Topal, Program Manager for the Tuohy Center for Interreligious Understanding at John Carroll University
• Ellen Posman, Chair of the Department of Religion, Baldwin Wallace University
• Heidi Eddy, Adjunct professor of Religion, Ashland University
• Craig Hovey (moderator), Professor of Religion, Ashland University

 

Saturday, March 21

8:00am – Registration opens, Coffee & light breakfast

8:45am – Welcome remarks (room 115)

9:00am – 10:30am: Session 1

A (Room 104)
Bill Warters Wayne State Community College	“20th Century Roots and Branches of Nonviolence Theory”
Semiha Topal John Carroll University	“Bridgebuilding and Religious Pluralism: Fostering Interreligious Understanding in a Divided World”
B (Room 105)
Brian Collins Ohio University	“Hindu and Buddhist Attitudes toward Sacrificial Violence”
Derek Kubilus First United Methodist Church	“Garden Variety Politics: The Subversive Witness of the Old Testament”

 

10:45am – 12:15pm: Session 2 

A (Room 104)
John Crowley-Buck John Carroll University	“Spiritual Resilience for Nonviolence Civil Resistance: An Ignatian Approach”
Connie Kassor Cuyahoga Community College	“The Sharp Edge of Compassion: Buddhist Perspectives on Anger and Peace”

B (Room 105)
Heidi Eddy Ashland University	“Inner Peace, Outer Peace: The Transformative Power of Compassion”
Nicole Kaufman Ohio University	“Listening, Witness, Creation: Women Leading Religious Experiences from Jail to the Execution Chamber”
C (Room 115)
Kailey Bradley Marian University	“Holding Loss, Cultivating Peace: Spiritual Support as a Foundation for Community Healing”
Danielle Ravitzki Independent Scholar	“Family, Forgiveness, and Justice:  Challenging the Moral Obligation to Forgive in Families”

 

12:15pm – 1:15pm: Lunch, Room 115

1:30pm – 2:30pm: Panel Discussion, Room 115

Ohio Council of Churches P.L.A.N. (Pastors & Laity Advancing Nonviolence) How Might We Assess Ecosystem Wide Flourishing in a Context of Global Dialogue? Featuring Jason Bricker-Thompson (Executive Director, Compassionate Communicate Center of Ohio), Tom Carlisi (P.L.A.N. Training Team Leader, OCC), Fred Goff (Certified Nonviolent Communication Trainer), and Amariah McIntosh (Associate Director & Director of Public Policy, OCC)

 

3:00pm – 4:30pm: Session 3

A (Room 104)
Ohio Council of Churches P.L.A.N. (Pastors & Laity Advancing Nonviolence)	“Experiential practice and developing an Action Plan for Outreach and Implementation of OCC P.L.A.N. in participants’ communities”
Jayne Wilcox Ashland Theological Seminary	Shalom-Making: The Primary Vocation of the Church
B (Room 105)
Elaine Stratton Hild Corpus monodicum, Uni Würzburg	“Peace at the End: Deathbed Practices in Historic Europe”
Katherine Brown Ashland University	“The Spiritual Foundation and Legacy of Lorenzetti’s Allegories of Good and Bad Government Fresco Cycle in Siena, 1338”

 

Remembering Dr. Robert Suggs

The founding members of the Ashland Center for Nonviolence note with sadness the passing of former AU provost Dr. Robert Suggs. He was provost in the early years of the 21st century. He was soft-spoken, but forthright. He was guided by deep spirituality.

Photo source

Dr. Suggs supported the local weekly vigil protesting the US government’s threat to invade Iraq in the winter of 2002-03. He sometimes joined the vigil that convened every Monday at the corner of Claremont and College Avenues and King Road. He also provided funds so that eloquent voices for peace—guest speakers of the caliber of Arun Gandhi, Yolanda King, and Jim Wallis—could be invited to campus in the years immediately after the invasion of Iraq and the war that followed. Those speakers drew large audiences that encouraged the former vigil participants, led by Dr. John Stratton, to establish a permanent organization that became the Ashland Center for Nonviolence.

Dr. Suggs retired to Florida with his wife Mary, where they were active in the Faith Covenant Church of Saint Petersburg. He is survived by his wife, four children, and their families. The Ashland Center for Nonviolence acknowledges the generous moral and material support provided by Dr. Suggs in its earliest formation.

Israeli-Palestinian Grassroots Peace Initiative Comes to Ashland

Roots Tour: Two Truths in One Heart, Two Peoples in One Land

Wednesday, November 5th | 7pm

John C. Meyers Convocation Center - Trustees Room

Join us to hear about the challenging and groundbreaking work of this Israeli-Palestinian grassroots initiative for understanding, nonviolence and transformation in the West Bank.

Check out https://www.friendsofroots.net/ for more information.

Co-Sponsored by the Ashland University Honors Program.

Judge Not

A group of us here in Ashland are getting excited about our upcoming training in Nonviolent Communication this weekend. In preparation, we’re reading a book by the same title by Marshall Rosenberg, who developed this methodology in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Nonviolent Communication teaches us to be observant, to see and withhold judgment. This is the first step in NVC, but it’s crucial, especially when it comes to communication that in some way hopes to bring resolution with another person: to mitigate a conflict, to deescalate a situation, to alter some destructive or distressing behavior. Rosenberg emphasized that many conflicts escalate because people confuse observation with evaluation (judgment). When we mix in judgments, interpretations, or labels, the other person often feels criticized and becomes defensive. 

Call for Papers - "The Spirit of Peace" Conference 2026

Multi-disciplinary Conference to be held March 21, 2026

Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio

Call for Papers: Due December 20, 2025

In order to foster interdisciplinary conversations around peace and nonviolence, the Ashland Center for Nonviolence invites proposals for the 2026 John D. Stratton Conference, centered on the theme: “The Spirit of Peace.”

This conference will explore how spiritual, religious, and contemplative traditions understand, articulate, and display peace commitments. While many contributions to peacemaking arise from political, legal, and scientific efforts, enduring global movements have often drawn their deepest strength from spiritual sources: practices of prayer and meditation, prophetic traditions, rituals of healing and forgiveness, and visions of interconnectedness and beloved community.

We welcome proposals from across disciplines—including religious studies, theology, ethics, history, literature, philosophy, psychology, education, the arts, and peace studies—as well as from practitioners working in interfaith dialogue, religious education, activism, and other peace-related fields. Together, we seek to better understand the spiritual dimensions of peace and how they can be nurtured in today’s world.

Question to explore might include:

• How do spiritual and religious traditions define and pursue peace?
• What roles do inner transformation, mysticism, and contemplative practice play in peacemaking?
• How have faith-based movements contributed to nonviolent resistance or reconciliation?
• What are ethical, theological, and other related roots of nonviolence across religious traditions?
• How do religious and spiritual art, music, and ritual help to cultivate a culture of peace?
• How can and have spiritualities been linked to resilience and hope amid violence and injustice?
• How can spiritual formation be integrated into peace education?

Both theoretical and practical approaches are encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted using the online submission form no later than December 20, 2025. Individual presentations should plan for 35 minutes with 10 additional minutes for discussion. Panel proposals are also encouraged.

Presenters are welcome to engage in academic or practical debates but should avoid unnecessary jargon and be mindful that our audience includes scholars, students, community members, and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds.

For more information on the Ashland Center for Nonviolence or for questions related to the conference, please contact acn@ashland.edu or (419) 289-5313.

Compassion and Humanity, Even in Battle

by Craig Hovey

This last Spring, I learned about a fascinating and surprising event that took place during a WWII battle 80 years earlier. In response to a suicide attack on the USS Missouri, the ship’s captain led a military burial for the pilot with full honors. It was the same kind of burial that any of the ship’s own crew would have received. None of the crew of the Missouri were killed in the attack.

See AP story here

The 80th anniversary of this event was marked by a ceremony aboard the Missouri, which is now a museum at Pearl Harbor. It was reported that the ceremony included grandsons of the captain, the mayor of Honolulu, and a Japanese city where kamikaze pilots often flew from. 

Stop it!

It may be that our historical moment is not unique, but it can feel like it is. There are enough tensions, outright violence, and injustices that must end to make one throw up one’s hands and shout “stop it!” 

Getting other people to stop what they’re doing, especially when it’s violent, degrading, or unjust, makes sense. In trying to accomplish this, we may get close to nonviolence, but we’re not there yet.