November 2014, Volume 8, Issue 8

There is an alarming trend of state governments instituting restrictive voter identification laws, which disproportionately affect racial minorities.  Although election administration is in the jurisdiction of state governments, federal protections exist for minority voters that have suffered from a history of exclusion.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most significant civil rights legislation in U.S. history, explicitly prohibits racial discrimination in voting.  While contemporary laws may not explicitly cite race, the effective discrimination of minority voters is undeniable....

The Filmmaking for Social Change seminar course was born out of the recognition that the peacebuilding and conflict prevention community needs to better engage with media in order to significantly impact how conflict is represented globally.  Traditionally, the field has not placed great emphasis or importance on engaging with traditional media or creating it.  We as conflict practitioners have the capacity to provide a unique perspective that is underrepresented in mainstream news and documentary film.

Much of the work currently being produced in the field is presented to the...

Arsen Kyaratyan first discovered the field of conflict analysis and resolution in the 90s, when S-CAR (then ICAR), was involved in projects in the South Caucasus.  According to him, “S-CAR was the first U.S. academic institution that introduced peacebuilding initiatives to the South Caucasus which later grew to include the organization of summer schools and dialogue projects for university students from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia." Arsen participated in some of these programs and from those experiences, he decided to become part of the S...