Boston University international relations majors will have the chance to hop the globe in an even shorter period through a new curriculum that combines two major cities in the world arena into a single program.
The International Conflict Resolution Program in Geneva and London will feature actual case studies and field trips to international institutions in both cities. The new program is a collaborative effort between the BU London and Geneva study sites and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Charles River campus and will open to students this summer, International Programs Institutional Relations Director Joe Finkhouse said.
‘By looking at the issues of conflict and conflict resolution while living outside their own familiar setting, we hope that students are better able to appreciate the tremendously varied and often conflicting sets of ideas, beliefs and values behind what people say and do,’ he said.
Students enrolled in the six-week program will spend the first half of their stay in Geneva, primarily visiting the more than 100 international organizations that call the city home. This variety of organizations makes the Swiss town a ‘great city’ for studying conflict resolution, BU associate international relations professor Michael Corgan said.
Organizations with main or regional headquarters in Geneva include the United Nations, the Red Cross, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Labour Organization.
Students will spend their last three weeks in London mostly examining case studies, Finkhouse said.
Corgan, who will travel to London during the last week of the program to lecture about the Cod Wars, several disputes over fishing boundaries for codfish between Iceland and England that happened from 1958 to 1976, said it serves a broad range of interests.
‘The focus is on what is going on right now and what should have been done in the past to fix the current issues,’ he said.
London is another ideal location for the program because of its long-standing position as a key player on the global arena, Finkhouse said.
‘All the topics that will be covered in this course – from the role of religion in relations between peoples and nations to the place of intercultural communication in the resolution of conflict – have a deep resonance in London,’ Finkhouse said.
BU London Program Studies Director Michael Peplar visited the Charles River campus to elaborate on the curriculum on Monday.’
‘While the courses are still subject to curriculum committee approval, it is safe to say contemporary examples and some classic conflicts will be used as case studies,’ Peplar said. ‘The faculty will use whatever is happening in the world next summer to compare and contrast with the classic examples.’
Students will see different roles various international organizations play on resolving global conflicts, and they have an option to stay longer than six weeks to intern at a relevant organization in London, he said.’
‘It will bridge the Charles River campus and the facilities in London and Geneva,’ Corgan said. ‘President Brown himself is talking about making BU one university, and this program is a big step toward it.’
The new program helps strengthen the already existing links between faculty and staff studying conflict resolution in Boston, London and Geneva, Peplar said.
‘This program provides an opportunity to link up work being done on the three campuses and allow students to benefit from these synergies,’ he said.