Center for Applied Conflict Management
Political Science Department
321 Bowman Hall
330-672-3143 (phone)
330-672-3362 (fax)
e-mail: cacm@kent.edu
The Center for Applied Conflict Management is Kent State University's original "living memorial" to May 4, 1970.
The Center was established in 1971 as a "living memorial" and as KSU's first institutional response to the shootings on May 4, 1970, when Ohio National Guardsmen killed four and injured nine Kent State University students during a student protest against the United States' war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
Immediately following the shootings, a university-wide commission was charged with recommending long-range institutional responses. The commission's consensus recommendation was that KSU should establish a living memorial in the form of a Center to study and to promote peaceful mechanisms of change. Thus the Center for Peaceful Change was established in 1971, later renamed the Center for Applied Conflict Management.
The Center's undergraduate degree program in peace and conflict studies was established two years later, in 1973, making it one of the oldest in the country. Today it is also likely the country's largest, regularly enrolling more than 1,000 students in its courses each academic year. Thanks to the Center for Applied Conflict Management, Kent State students learn—and practice—applied skills in negotiation, mediation, community collaboration, workplace conflict management, dispute systems design, and nonviolent action.