April 1985
Mrs. Joan B. Kroc is in the audience when the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., then president of Notre Dame, gives a lecture in San Diego, California, urging scientists and religious leaders to work together to halt the nuclear arms race and emphasizing the role of universities in training a new generation of leaders.
Impressed by his visionary and practical approach, Mrs. Kroc offers to help.
John J. Gilligan is appointed as the first Director of the Kroc Institute. Gilligan is a graduate of Notre Dame, former governor of Ohio, and former director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Robert C. Johansen, former President of the World Policy Institute and founding editor-in-chief of the World Policy Journal, is appointed director of the Kroc Institute's graduate programs.
George A. Lopez, Director of Peace and Global Studies at Earlham College and a national consultant on peace studies pedagogy, is appointed director of the Undergraduate Program in Peace Studies.
June 1987
Anne Hayner becomes Administrator of the International Scholars Program, coordinating recruitment, travel, orientation, housing and co-curricular activities of the master's students and teaching courses on cross-cultural understanding.
Her work evolves to include development of a professional peacebuilding and career network among the Kroc Institute's now 1,800+ alumni.
August 1987
The Institute enrolls the first class of international scholars pursuing a master’s in peace studies. Among the first class is Lou Nanni (back row in red), who will go on to direct South Bend's Center for the Homeless and then will become Vice President for University Relations at Notre Dame.
Peace House is established in Columba Hall and serves as a space for all international scholars to live together in community.
October 1987
Mrs. Kroc meets with the international scholars for the first time, engaging in a lively exchange about their studies and their plans for peace.
Later that year she gives an additional $6 million to build what will become Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Center for International Studies, which houses the Kroc Institute and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
April 1993
The Institute launches The Sanctions Project under the leadership of George A. Lopez and David Cortright. The project responds to the United Nations’ increased use of economic sanctions in the post-Cold War era.
Today the project lives on as the Sanctions and Security Project, co-sponsored with the Fourth Freedom Forum.
May 1993
Undergraduate students hold the first annual Notre Dame Student Peace Conference.
Funded through a generous gift by Mrs. Kroc, and planned and managed entirely by undergraduates, the conference attracts dozens of Notre Dame students, as well as students from other colleges and universities around the country.
January 1995
The Kroc Institute hosts the first annual Theodore M. Hesburgh Lectures on Ethics and Public Policy. At this inaugural gathering, author and scholar Stanley Hoffmann, Dillon Professor at Harvard University, delivers two lectures on the problems of humanitarian intervention in international relations.
The lecture begins a tradition of visits from Nobel Prize laureates, including:
- Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
- Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, lawyer and human rights advocate in Iran
- Sir Joseph Rotblat, 1995 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, nuclear physicist who left the Manhattan Project as an act of conscience and who founded the Pugwash Conferences and organization
- Amartya Sen, 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, South African Anglican cleric and theologian
July 2000
Fr. Hesburgh receives the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest civilian honor, in recognition of his contributions to civil rights, higher education, the Church, and the nation.
The Kroc Institute organizes a celebration, with presentations by Congressman Timothy Roemer of Indiana; Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, dean of Harvard Divinity School; and four Kroc Institute alumni. Alumni speakers include Zoughbi Zoughbi (M.A. '89), Satoko Nakagawa (M.A. '91), George Wachira (M.A. '91), and Michelle Parlevliet (M.A. '95).
2001
A Kroc Institute Advisory Council is formed.
One of the council’s first priorities is to contribute to a new strategic plan that sets the stage for a period of significant growth and strengthening of the Kroc Institute, including the development of international field sites for master’s students.
September 2001
In response to the September 11 attacks, the Kroc Institute organizes a series of panel discussions for students, faculty, and community members; dorm talks as part of a Week of Education on Peace and War; participates in extensive media commentary; and creates new classes on terrorism.
December 2007
Mark Gallogly, ’79 and Elizabeth Strickler establish an endowment to support Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular.
The endowment lays the basis for the current Contending Modernities research initiative, a major interdisciplinary effort to generate new knowledge and greater understanding of the ways in which religious and secular forces interact in the modern world.
August 2008
The Kroc Institute launches the Ph.D. Program in Peace Studies. In addition to peace studies, students choose a partner discipline for research and course work: anthropology (begun in 2013), history, political science, psychology, sociology, or theology (begun in 2011).
June 2009
The first Summer Institute, “Teaching Peace in the 21st Century,” brings faculty members from all over the world to campus to equip them for launching, expanding and revitalizing peace studies programs on their own campuses.
Since 2009, the Institute has hosted 700+ attendees from over 100 different institutions across 6 continents.
March 2010
Oxford University Press publishes Strategies of Peace: Transforming Conflict in a Violent World, edited by Scott Appleby, John Paul Lederach, and Daniel Philpott.
The book is the first in Oxford’s “Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding” series. Other books in the series by Kroc Institute faculty include:
- Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation, by Daniel Philpott
- Quality Peace: Peacebuilding, Victory and World Order, by Peter Wallensteen
- Restorative Justice, Reconciliation, and Peacebuilding, by Jennifer J. Llewellyn and Daniel Philpott
- Strategies of Peace, by Daniel Philpott and Gerard Powers
- The Peace Continuum: What It Is and How to Study It, by Christian Davenport, Erik Melander, and Patrick M. Regan
- Where the Evidence Leads: A Realistic Strategy for Peace and Human Security, by Robert C. Johansen
January 2011
The Kroc Institute launches the Peace Accords Matrix (PAM), a unique research and peacebuilding tool for comparing comprehensive peace agreements.
John Darby, professor of comparative ethnic studies, directs the project. Madhav Joshi, a political scientist with expertise on civil wars and post-war transitions, is the associate director of PAM.
April 2016
With a $1.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic studies, launches the Madrasa Discourses project, bringing together madrasa (Islamic seminary) graduates with Notre Dame professors and students for conversations about religion, society, and epistemology (the study of knowledge or ways of knowing) in a pluralistic and rapidly-changing world.
Since its founding, the project has hosted several cohorts of scholars for two years of study and launched an innovative virtual curricular website that translates the curriculum used in the course into a self-guided and accessible format.
November 2016
The 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP names the Kroc Institute and its Peace Accords Matrix Barometer Initiative as part of the international verification component.
The Institute is responsible for technical support and monitoring of peace agreement implementation, and has released five comprehensive reports on implementation status that have been used by policymakers, peacebuilders, academics, and civil society actors.
November 2017
Five University of Notre Dame faculty members and 12 current students and recent graduates participate in a Vatican conference titled “Perspectives for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament,” convened by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development in Rome.
September 2018
The Kroc Institute presents a new five-year strategic plan that lays out three primary goals for the Institute’s work through 2023.
Enhance cutting-edge research and continue to develop the Institute’s global leadership role in interdisciplinary peace research
Ensure that Kroc Institute research has a significant impact on peace policy and practice
Develop educational programs to consolidate the Institute’s reputation as a global leader in peace education
November 2019
The Institute hosts “Building Sustainable Peace: Ideas, Evidence, and Strategies,” an interdisciplinary conference on the state of the field of peace research and practice and the nexus between them.
The conference brings together 450 peacebuilding scholars and practitioners for three days of events on the Notre Dame campus. Professor Emeritus John Paul Lederach gives the closing keynote address.
March 2020
On March 19, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Kroc Institute announces a move to virtual operations. All in-person events were cancelled, classes moved to online formats, and the vast majority of faculty and staff members moved to working off campus.
Even though the format shifted, the work of studying, building, and researching peace continued through virtual events, pre-recorded video conversations, faculty research initiatives, remote work by staff, and more.
Fall 2020
The Institute publishes a new webpage focused on intersectionality and justice. Although many peace studies faculty members were conducting intersectional research prior to 2018, the launch of the Institute’s five-year strategic plan formalized the Institute’s commitment to using an intersectional lens to engage peace studies research, practice, and educational efforts.
Thus far, the initiative has launched a podcast, Pedagogies for Peace, and sponsored several events.
