If negotiations for funding proceed as expected, an introductory course in peace and conflict studies will be offered at the University next fall.

Offered by the science technology and society department, the experimental course explores a relatively new area of academia. The course involves an interdisciplinary examination of human conflict, lethal violence, and the possibility of peace through use of various methodologies ranging from engineering to the humanities.

Andrew Murray, director of the Baker Institute for peace and conflict studies at Juniata College, will conduct the course as part of his sabbatical from that school.

"At the present time, we are negotiating, trying to get funds to bring someone here this fall to do the introductory course," said Robert Walker, assistant professor of science technology and society.

No plans exist to develop a major or minor program here in the near future, Walker said.

Currently the Peace and Conflict Studies Committee is in the process of obtaining funding for the course, Walker said.

"We're looking at religious community funds, people from various main-line religions who have a real interest in trying to put these kinds of things in place," he said.

This committee is also looking toward the University Central Administration and General Education for possible in-kind support, Walker said.

Unexplored here, and complexly interdisciplinary, this area of study has had a hard time gaining acceptance in the academic community and at Penn State for several reasons.

Since universities have a rigid structure of academic disciplines which barrs this program, said Tonia Devon, coordinator of Student Programs, any attempt to cross over academic disciplines, or to do inter-disciplinary work is frowned on and feared by many academics.

Another force operating against a peace studies curriculum is that "there are those who feel that it's political, and they don't want to get into controversy," Devon said.

However growing interest among faculty members, community residents and students in developing a peace studies curriculum has culminated in the organization of the committee to investigate the interest and the plausibility of developing a program here.

"We're trying to reach all the faculty we can that are interested," Devon said.

Throughout the last six years various people have been discussing the idea of a peace studies curriculum, Walker said.

Robert Ginsberg, professor of philosophy, led a group of faculty at Penn State Delaware County Campus that sought to establish a peace studies major and minor, he said.

Several proposals were made to the College of Liberal Arts for a five year period but "it usually got through the program or the department and then the Dean's Administrative Committee canned it, as being ideological," Walker said.

The pursuit of a peace studies program at the University has been at times halting, he added.

"It's not something, a program, that's going to be brought in as a finished product," Walker said.

Ginsberg said,"It's very odd that Penn State, the most important and powerful school in the state, is behind. Smaller places are leading the way. Young people are realizing its a comprehensive field of interest in the modern world, a sleeping giant.

"We're a traditional school, we're conservative, we tend to shy away from the big issues," he said.