Center for Applied Conflict Management

The Center for Applied Conflict Management (CACM) was founded in 1971 as Kent State University's original "living memorial" to the students killed 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.

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.

Famous not only for the violent conflict of May 4th, Kent State is now also well-known for its academic study of conflict management. Many students come to Kent State University to study conflict and its creative management with the faculty of the Center for Applied Conflict Management. There are options at all levels. Besides our undergraduate major and minor in Applied Conflict Management, we also offer graduate students many options. Doctoral students come to Kent State to study closely with Center faculty members who also teach in the Public Policy doctoral degree, and many master’s-level students study with Center faculty through Kent State’s creative Master’s in Liberal Studies program, where students can fashion a conflict management degree program to fit their particular interests.

 

Events

6th International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education

The Global Issues Resource Center and Library at Cuyahoga Community College is partnering with colleges and universities (including the Center for Applied Conflict Management at Kent State University), local, national, and international non-governmental and governmental organizations to host the 6th International Conference on Conflict Resolution Education (CRE), Bridging Cultures: Education for Global Citizenship and Civic Engagement in Cleveland, Ohio from June 12 - 17, 2013.

Download the complete conference program.

See Event Details

Points of Pride

• CACM Senior Evan Gildenblatt meets President Obama, Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel Senior CACM major Evan Gildenblatt has had an exciting year, meeting both President Obama and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel.
  - Posted Apr. 18, 2013
• CACM Professor Landon Hancock granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor CACM professor Landon Hancock was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science effective in the fall of 2012.
  - Posted Dec. 21, 2012
• Dr. Hancock appointed to lead Peace Studies Section of the ISA Landon Hancock was elected in 2012 to a two-year term as Chairperson of the Peace Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA). The ISA is the premier academic organization connecting scholars of international relations around the world. The Peace Studies Section that Professor Hancock is overseeing is the third largest section of the ISA, with over 600 members.
  - Posted Dec. 14, 2012
• CACM Director Promoted to Rank of Full Professor Dr. Patrick G. Coy, Director at the Center for Applied Conflict Management (CACM), has recently been promoted to the rank of Full Professor at Kent State University, effective fall 2011.
  - Posted Feb. 3, 2012
• Landon Hancock Co-edits New Book, Local Peacebuilding and National Peace The new book co-edited by Dr. Landon Hancock, Local Peacebuilding and National Peace, picks up where his 1997 volume, Zones of Peace, left off.
  - Posted Feb. 3, 2012