After more than two decades of regular events, Central New York Peace Studies Conference organizers decided to reinvigorate the program with new topics and discussions at Binghamton University.

The 26th annual conference on Saturday, sponsored by the Speech and Debate Team, JUMP Nation (Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program) and Peace Action, featured speakers from across central New York, including SUNY Broome, Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland. Guests spoke in the New University Union about how to promote peace “in an era of revolution,” and what to do about modern-day issues of privacy, education and child care.

According to English professor Joe Leeson-Schatz, one of the organizers and the director of the BU Speech and Debate Team, attendance at the conferences had been shrinking in recent years, so members of the team expanded the topics discussed to increase interest.

“We took it over last year when it was the 25th consortium and prior to that, it was beginning to shrink and get smaller and smaller so we’re trying to revive it,” Leeson-Schatz said. “One of the reasons that we’re drawing people in is to try to regrow what it was at its earlier years.”

Lucien X. Lombardo, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, spoke about the effects of childhood and education on peace. He said that the American government does not do enough to protect children’s rights and shield them from violence.

“If we take a child-centered perspective, we begin to see the problems we create with children,” Lombardo said. “Often people reflect on their childhood and how that affects the person they become in their adulthood. Our childhood is part of our lives forever even though we try to forget it.”

Jermel McClure, a freshman majoring in political science, said he agreed with Lombardo’s ideas about childhood and its effect on the future.

“He was talking about taking children more seriously,” McClure said. “I think that parents teach kids that ‘the best kind of person you could be is a person that’s like me’ and I think that’s problematic.”

Members of JUMP Nation discussed their program, which invites eighth graders from inner city schools to come stay with BU students of a similar background for four days. The goal of the program is to demonstrate to those children that they can go to college if they take school seriously.

In the same vein, Scott Corley, associate professor at SUNY Broome, spoke about racial injustice and his efforts to educate people about institutional inequality through pamphlets and promotional materials.

Amber George, program coordinator for Intergroup Dialogue Project at Cornell, compared Corely’s program to her own, which offers a safe place for students to communicate about their differences with one another.

“He’s trying to create spaces where you can have honest and fruitful conversations about race and social justice; we’re doing [that] as well,” George said. “Although I would say our approach is more relational whereas his seems a little bit more intellectual.”

Mahvish Hoda, president of Peace Action and a senior double-majoring in neuroscience and studio art, said she hoped that after seeing all the different speakers, students had gained an awareness of what they could do to promote peace themselves.