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Peace, Ethics, and Social Justice

Help create a better and more just world by working and advocating for peace on local, state and national levels.

Fannetta Jones '11, an English teacher at King College Prep High School in Chicago, co-founded #FeedThePeople, an initiative that provides food for people who live in food deserts.
What does world peace look like? How do you study it? How do you start to solve it? Help answer these questions with us.
Our annual "Take Back The Night" event on campus gives survivors and advocates a place to speak, march and rally against all forms of abuse and a safe place to share their stories.

Be the change

The Peace, Ethics, and Social Justice minor, supported through the Center for Civic and Social Change, is for students who want to make a difference and help make the world more peaceful and just. The minor, which can be paired with any major, helps students envision how their major will help them to be engaged citizens.

Goals for the minor

Examine the causes and contexts of violence and war, especially issues of systemic violence and social injustice.
Explore conceptual, social and cultural frameworks in which beliefs and values are held. Students develop ethical empathy through under-standing a variety of perspectives for decisions about how to live, treat others and organize society.
Value the creativity of moral imagination to inspire political change. Through the arts — music, dance, poetry, the visual arts and humanities — the program inspires a “revolution in consciousness,” to borrow a phrase from author bell hooks.
Examine dispositions, practices and activities for pursuing peace and justice at personal, communal and global levels, which can include the planet and non-human animals.

<blockquote class="callout-quote"><div class="callout-quote-text"><p> “I truly feel like all the professors at Monmouth College care a lot about their students. … I learned so much in the span of a few years and will forever cherish how my mind has expanded.”</p></div><footer class="callout-quote-footer">Celeste Dominguez ’18</footer></blockquote>

Multi-directional career paths

Career paths for Peace, Ethics, and Social Justice students branch in many directions: post-violence community building, environmental activism, sustainable agriculture, peace education, government, conflict resolution, or social change through the arts.

Specific career opportunities include:

Community organizer
Environmental activist
International peacemaker
Government
Diplomat/foreign service
Attorney
Human rights work
Non-profit work
Non-governmental organization work

Alumni support

Students in the minor are eligible for the Brad Wefenstette Prize for Social Justice. The annual prize – created by 2007 Monmouth graduate Kelli Wefenstette to honor her late brother – is awarded to an outstanding student who is committed to peace, social justice and social change.