Partners in Peace: A New Opportunity for Honors Students

(Walker, 2025)
News & Notes

Last semester, the Honors College offered a new spin on HONR 199, Inquiries in Contemporary American Civilization. Dr. Robin Blom taught the inaugural course on the history, influence, and future of the famous Nobel Peace Prize. This course was the beginning of Ball State University’s membership with the Partners in Peace cohort. The National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and the Nobel Peace Center established the Partners in Peace cohort to both honor and also encourage the efforts of Honors organizations to educate students on the legacy of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prizes, and the influence of the Nobel Peace Prize. In this class, students read about the life and beliefs of Alfred Nobel and discovered that, similar to the other brainchild of Nobel (dynamite), the Peace Prize has great potential to both help and hurt humanity. Nobel’s criteria for deciding who should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize have been followed by the Nobel Committee to various extents throughout its history.

Students first built a foundation of knowledge about the prize and its founder, then they studied previous laureates, writing numerous reflections comparing them both to each other and also the standards set by Nobel’s will. This critical analysis translated naturally to the culmination of the course: the class had to choose their own nominee, one who would be nominated by Dr. Robin Blom during the next nomination period. In pursuit of this goal, students compiled about one hundred candidates for nomination, developed their own criteria for selection based on those set by Nobel, and went through several rounds of presentations and eliminations until they arrived at their final decision for nominee: Zainab Salbi and her organization, Women for Women International.

By going through the process of selecting nominees, students gained insight into the choices made by the Nobel Committee and how they are influenced by past decisions as well as societal and political relationships. The insight into peacework that students gained through the lens of the Nobel Peace Prize is important: just as the prize is complicated, peace is also complicated, and the more students are able to understand the intricacies of peace, the better they will be able to play a part in its cultivation. The empowerment of students in the quest for peace is what the NCHC and the Nobel Peace Center are promoting through the Partners in Peace cohort, and as an inaugural member, Ball State University will be among the first universities in the country to graduate students from this program and into the world with both a greater appreciation for peace and also a greater potential to achieve it.