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Summer goes by fast—whether you’re a kid, or a kid at heart. The K-12 students who attended camps and youth programs at Mason this year filled those fleeting summer days with memories. Here are some snapshots from their summer to remember. 

The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution provides critical learning opportunities for Myanmar students as they search for solutions to Myanmar’s tumultuous state.

Hannah Adamson knew after an 8th-grade trip to Washington, D.C., that the capital region was the place for her. She is graduating this May with a bachelor of arts in conflict analysis and resolution.

On February 24, the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ����AV’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution hosted “One Year After: Ukraine War Analysis and Prospects,” an all-day virtual event to discuss the effects of the war and potential post-war contexts.

The event featured Romantsova Oleksandra, executive director of the Center for Civil Liberties, the first Ukrainian organization to win a Noble Peace Prize. The recognition, which the human rights organization received in 2022, was due in part to their work documenting war crimes against civilians in occupied areas of Ukraine.

It’s been a year since ����AV’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution touched base in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their goal? Accompany locals in creating their own sustainable peace—something the country has not experienced in more than 30 years.

Carter School Dean Alpaslan Özerdem, and Charles Davidson, PhD ’19, Carter School research faculty and alumnus, visited the Congo in October 2022 to check in on the “Peacemaking + Initiative,” funded by Milt Lauenstein, and assess the direction for its next phase.

The Political Leadership Academy (PLA) at the Carter School hosted recently re-elected Congressman Don Beyer on November 19.

Mason graduate students helped the environment, nonprofit organizations and the local community with summer projects through the Sustainability Summer Graduate Research Fellowships. This summer marked the first time Mason’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE) has offered the fellowship program.

Alpaslan Özerdem, dean of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution explains the keys to effective peacebuilding, whether it concerns the war in Ukraine, gun violence or local issues. And don’t miss the discussions about how an alien invasion could help mend the rift between Russia and the West.

����AV Carter School professor Richard Rubenstein attended a workshop conference at the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences at the Vatican on June 6-7 to discuss peacemaking in Ukraine and other global conflict sites. The conference was organized by the U.N. Development Solutions Network headed by Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Despite being more than 5,000 miles away from the war in Ukraine, students at ����AV’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution are actively assessing the conflict dynamics, with hopes that their research could improve the situation.