In response to student feedback, Pacific for the first time has added the Center for Peace and Spirituality to the list of organizations to be found on the Forest Grove campus.
The new center is intended to provide an environment in which students can explore and challenge their own beliefs while finding respect and understanding for the beliefs of others.
Furthermore, according to the center’s director and chair of the philosophy department, Dr. Dave Boersma, conversations with Pacific students had revealed students’ desires to see their learning come to action together, or in Boersma’s own words, a “place on campus where they could live out their moral convictions.”
More specifically, the center strives to help students find inner peace. Boersma emphasized that inner peace and peace with others “feed on each other and both are necessary. You aren’t going to find inner peace in a society that is unjust, and vice versa.”
Apart from what it plans to provide for students’ spiritually, the Center for Peace and Spirituality will maintain connections with other academic programs at Pacific. The Center for Civic Engagement, Center for Gender Equity, Center for a Sustainable Society and the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation share similar Pacific values with the Center for Peace and Spirituality said Boersma.
In the future, the center might provide a designated space for groups to gather. For now, the center will focus on strengthening connections with students and other campus organizations.
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