{"id":10791,"date":"2021-01-11T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/?p=10791"},"modified":"2024-04-22T14:38:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T18:38:14","slug":"two-swatties-earn-national-award-for-work-in-peace-conflict-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/2021\/01\/11\/two-swatties-earn-national-award-for-work-in-peace-conflict-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Swatties Earn National Award for Work in Peace & Conflict Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

— by Ryan Dougherty via Swarthmore News and Events, January 8th 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Vanessa Meng \u201920 (left) and Lucy Jones ’20 were honored at Peace and Justice Studies Association’s annual meeting, held remotely in November.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in its history, the Peace and Justice Studies Association\u2019s<\/a> (PJSA) award for best paper went to two students this year \u2014 and they\u2019re both Swarthmoreans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The selection committee honored both Lucy Jones \u201920, who explored the experiences of Central American migrant women on the U.S.-Mexico border for her thesis, and Vanessa Meng \u201920, who examined the debates surrounding colonialism in contemporary Chinese-African relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students, who graduated in May with high honors, were honored at PJSA\u2019s annual meeting, held virtually in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Jones, it was an opportunity to properly celebrate her thesis, \u201cResistance, Resilience, and Survival: Central American Refugee Women Across the U.S.-Mexico Border,\u201d which she completed while in quarantine during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a huge honor, and very exciting to have my work recognized and to be able to talk about it with peace scholars from around the country,\u201d says Jones, who majored in peace & conflict studies at Swarthmore and is now a legal assistant at an immigration law firm in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Meng, it was particularly rewarding to be recognized for her thesis, \u201cThe Middle Kingdom Dreams: Understanding and Reframing China-African Relations,\u201d at what she considered a time of heightened hostility from the Western media toward her native China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hoped to show that there is an opportunity for peace between the U.S. and China, because the values and ideas that I was taught at Swarthmore, specifically the American revolutionary dream from activists in the United States, are in fact aligned with the dream of the country I grew up in,\u201d says Meng, who majored in peace & conflict studies and has been writing a children\u2019s book on environmental science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both students expressed gratitude for the faculty and students of the Peace & Conflict Studies Program, citing its depth of collaboration and support. They follow PJSA thesis award winners from Swarthmore<\/a> in 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cResearch and writing are important in our program, so we are understandably thrilled when colleagues in our field recognize that our students are doing important and often cutting-edge work,\u201d says Lee Smithey, professor and program coordinator. \u201cLucy and Vanessa exemplify student scholarship in peace & conflict studies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assistant Professor of Peace & Conflict Studies Sa\u2019ed Atshan \u201906 advised both students on their thesis projects, and offered comments on their behalf at the awards ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLucy arrived in my office in August 2016 from Birmingham, Ala., where she was born and raised,\u201d Atshan recalls. \u201cIn our very first meeting, she expressed palpable enthusiasm for peace & conflict studies, reflecting on her Irish heritage, and proved to be a brilliant student.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atshan says Meng joined the College community \u201cwith a very clear consciousness regarding peace and environmental justice, speaking eloquently about climate challenges she witnessed in her hometown of Beijing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— by Ryan Dougherty via Swarthmore News and Events, January 8th 2021 For the first time in its history, the Peace and Justice Studies Association\u2019s (PJSA) award for best paper went to two students this year \u2014 and they\u2019re both Swarthmoreans. The selection committee honored both Lucy Jones \u201920, who explored the experiences of Central American … Continue reading Two Swatties Earn National Award for Work in Peace & Conflict Studies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,4,511],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10794,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10791\/revisions\/10794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/pcs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}