The EMU Peace Fellowship hosted the 2025 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship (ICPF) Conference from Feb. 21-23. The ICPF is a student-led conference that invites educational institutions, primarily faith-based, from across the country to discuss and examine issues revolving around peace and justice. With a theme of “Building Solidarity: from Turtle Island to Palestine,” the goal of the 2025 conference was to learn more about solidarity-based organizing while listening to representatives from different organizations and learning what college students can do to make an impact on their campuses and local communities. 

The conference had three keynote speakers, Lars Åkerson with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, along with Nick Martin and Adam Ramer, the two co-founders of Mennonite Action. The conference opened on Friday, Feb. 21 with an introduction to the speakers and an interview led by members of the EMU Peace Fellowship team. In this conversation, the speakers shared information about their respective groups and what got them into their line of work. 

On the following day, Saturday, Feb. 22, the keynote speakers gave their formal keynote addresses, providing more context for their work. Åkerson discussed the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, a movement that calls for Christian churches to address the role they’ve played in the colonization and extinction of Indigenous People due to the Doctrine of Discovery that justified white settler colonialism. He emphasized the importance of solidarity, but stated that true solidarity requires transformation and action, rather than just words. He also introduced the idea of “re-piecing the quilt of our belonging” to reconstruct and change our worlds.

“I want to help us reflect on and be curious about the systems and structures that shape our lives and shape our worlds,” Åkerson stated post address. “[…] more than anything we can develop a new attention to our place and ourselves so that we can join in a real anti-violent solidarity with our Indigenous and Palestinian and other neighbors.”

Åkerson’s words inspired several students who attended the address, many highlighting his comments on solidarity. 

“I really appreciated what he had to say about solidarity,” EMU junior Sara Kennel shared, “saying that when we define the places where [we are alike and different], it’s not to exclude anyone but rather to broaden the circle of solidarity.”

EMU junior Ivan Betancourt also shared, “his overall message to solidarity and to peace and freedom” were his biggest takeaways from Åkerson’s presentation.

Martin and Ramer’s address spoke about their work with Mennonite Action, a movement they created in November 2023 in response to the deadly attacks on Palestine following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. They shared that Mennonite Action is a group trying to create a world where everyone can be free, stressing the importance of a free Palestine. The group has worked with various religious groups to join forces to call for Palestinian liberation, but has also led their own actions, including an 11-day march to Washington, D.C. from Harrisonburg, VA in support of a ceasefire. Their address encouraged Mennonites to take a stand against Christian nationalism and make the choice to collectively use their power and solidarity to create real change where they want to see it. 

“It’s really easy to feel cynical about the world that we’re living in and to feel like you as an individual can’t do anything to change the world, but we can,” Martin shared after the address. “But the only way we can do that is to take action together, collectively. To root ourselves in our faith and then to decide to take action and to build power as a collective body.”

A student group from Bluffton University in Ohio enjoyed the messages from Martin and Ramer. “I really liked the stress of the importance of teamwork,” Jenna Melroy shared. 

Fellow students Logan Daugherty and Ellie Shemenski, agreed and also appreciated the presenter’s message of doing what you can, no matter how big or small, in order to make a difference. “Finding that one thing that you can do and then doing it to your absolute best ability is going to make so much of a bigger impact in the long run than spreading yourself thin and trying to do a little here and a little there,” Shemenski stated. 

Along with the keynote speakers, the conference hosted a number of workshop sessions where students could choose where they wanted to go based on the session topics. The topics included learning about Palestine solidarity, conflict and change in the Democratic Republic of Congo, digital activism, student organizing, and more. 

The conference ended on Sunday, Feb. 21 with reflections from the keynote speakers and the student participants along with discussions of what can be done to continue this work on people’s college campuses. 

Ahsa Sadhukhan, a student from Elizabethtown College, ended the conference feeling hopeful about what’s ahead. “It’s really nice knowing that there’s a community of people across the entire country that are engaged in similar types of work and that community doesn’t have to be geographically constrained.”