Peace & justice take center stage at Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship

After five-year hiatus, formerly annual conference successfully resumes at EMU

Lars Åkerson ’08 used a familiar Mennonite symbol, that of a quilt, to discuss the importance of belonging. “We need to piece back together the quilt of our belonging, acknowledge the extent of our fragmentation, touch and unfold the edges of our differences, and become stitched together by the colored threads of our grief,” he said. Åkerson, representing the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, served as the first keynote speaker for the 2025 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship (ICPF) conference. His work with the Coalition involves building Indigenous solidarity, and he discussed collaborations he helped facilitate between Maya and Mennonite farmers. 

The conference, held from Friday, Feb. 21, to Sunday, Feb. 23, in the EMU Seminary building, centered around the theme “Building Solidarity: from Turtle Island to Palestine.” It brought together 110 attendees, some from the Harrisonburg community and area universities, and others from Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker colleges across the U.S. Aidan Yoder ’24, a recent EMU graduate who served on the conference planning committee, said he was excited by the energy that students brought to the event. “We far surpassed my goals for the conference with the number of people involved and the variety of institutions represented,” Yoder said.

Two speakers, Adam Ramer and Nick Martin, shared the second keynote address on Mennonite Action, an organization working to build Palestinian solidarity. Ramer and Martin discussed the purpose and mission of their organization for about half an hour, explaining that they stand with the downtrodden and oppressed, particularly those in Palestine, and strive for a world “where all God’s children are free.” For the next 45 minutes, they opened the floor to questions. “How do you build empathy for a cause like a cease-fire?” one attendee asked. Ramer and Martin then discussed the importance of reaching people’s hearts by going beyond logical arguments and appealing to values and emotions.

Between the keynote addresses on Saturday, attendees chatted over pastries, fruit, and coffee and attended workshops. Some workshops focused on broad topics such as nonviolent action, while others discussed specific justice and peacebuilding endeavors, including Palestine solidarity in Harrisonburg and visual and digital activism in Brazil and Argentina. Yoder said he heard from many attendees who enjoyed the workshops as a place to ask questions and learn more.

EMU last hosted the ICPF in February 2020, before it was indefinitely put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Renae Benner, an EMU junior who helped plan the 2025 conference, said she felt that people learned a lot and built stronger relationships between colleges. “I’m optimistic that we successfully restarted the annual ICPF,” she said. As Åkerson said in his address, “The way things are is not the way they must be.” Although he was talking about activism more broadly, his words could also apply to restarting a beloved conference, one that Goshen College first hosted 77 years ago. 

A highlight from the conference for Yoder came during weekend reflections when the committee announced that two colleges had tentatively agreed to host the ICPF for the next two years. “I was glad the energy we created this year resulted in the continuation of the annual conference,” he said.

Those planning the ICPF 2025 conference were Renae Benner, Shawna Hurst, Micaiah Landis, Georgia Metz, Tim Seidel, and Aidan Yoder.