{"id":43069,"date":"2011-08-04T08:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T12:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=43069"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:15:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:15:22","slug":"uconn-students-study-conflict-resolution-at-the-home-of-the-troubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/08\/uconn-students-study-conflict-resolution-at-the-home-of-the-troubles\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying Conflict Resolution in the Home of ‘The Troubles’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>
From left, UConn students Grace Vasington, Savannah Williams, Rachael Nave, and Dovile Vilkauskaite on a visit to Belfast Castle during their trip to Ireland to attend the U21 summer school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re going to study conflict and conflict resolution, there are few better places to hold a conference than Ireland\u2014long home of The Troubles<\/a>. So that\u2019s what the leaders of Universitas 21, an international network of leading research-intensive universities, did from July 11 to 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cBelfast was sobering,\u201d says Grace Vasington, a participant at the conference who will be a junior at UConn this fall. \u201cWhile parts of the city are very beautiful and alive, others look like a continuing war zone. Peace Walls<\/a>, most of which have gone up since the war, rise 40 feet into the air and separate Republican communities from Loyalist ones. Many are covered in elaborate\u2014often political\u2014graffiti and murals. One of the most amazing things about it was just how many people, Irish and foreigners alike, had written prayers for peace\u201d on the walls.<\/p>\n

The Peace Walls also impressed Dovile Vilkauskaite, who says the visit to Belfast was the highlight of the trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to see first-hand the separation of the communities, says Vilkauskaite, a double major in international relations and German. \u201cThere were bars on the windows of the schools and homes near the walls, showing the impact of the violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the students also saw beyond the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterestingly enough, that was also one of the best nights I had out and amongst the youth,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no visible divide, not one that I could see, anyway. We also had former political prisoners talk to us about their experiences in the conflict and where they stand now, and why they don\u2019t support violent methods anymore. It seems that now they\u2019ve turned to politics to solve their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

UConn joined Universitas 21<\/a> in 2010, becoming one of only 23 research universities in the world\u2014and one of only two, with the University of Virginia, in the United States\u2014to become a partner in the consortium. The network’s purpose is to facilitate collaboration and cooperation between the member universities and to create opportunities for them on a scale that none would be able to achieve operating independently or through traditional bilateral alliances. Established in 1997, Universitas 21 engages in a number of activities, including summer schools and research programs for undergraduates.<\/p>\n

About 90 students from 15 countries participated in the recent journey to University College Dublin.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dovile<\/a>
From left, Dovile Vilkauskaite, Celia Guillard, Grace Vasington, Professor Diana Rios, Savannah Williams, and Rachael Nave at University College Dublin, where the U21 summer school was held.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs much as I learned from the formal lectures and group discussions, I feel the most important aspect of the trip was the social aspect,\u201d says Rachael Nave, a senior double major in political science and international relations. \u201cSitting down and just having conversations with people from anywhere from New Zealand to Sweden to Mexico gave me so many different perspectives on life and allowed me to experience other cultures. We talked about everything from the kind of music and movies we like to our opinions on what sort of culture you\u2019re immersed in. People generally want the same things. I have a new found respect for the way other countries handle their conflicts, and an appreciation for all other cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diana Rios, an associate professor of communication sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, accompanied the five UConn students. She says the trip was \u201can eye opener. The days were intense, with workshops, speakers of different types with different themes, from Irish history to former members of Parliament, the three IRA<\/a> members \u2026 It was a very educational experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rios also led one of the workshops, discussing arms control and arms importing\u2014many of the weapons used in the Irish conflict were imported.<\/p>\n

The U21 experience will come to Storrs in 2013, when UConn hosts the summer school. Richard Wilson, director of the Human Rights Institute<\/a>, will lead workshops and seminars on human rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five UConn undergraduates spent nearly two weeks in Ireland at the Universitas 21 summer school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":43561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[37],"class_list":["post-43069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-affairs","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 08:50:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43069"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44273,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43069\/revisions\/44273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/43561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43069"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=43069"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=43069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}