Students Help Transform RV
Into a Vehicle for Peace

For Immediate Release:
December 8, 2004

RICHMOND, Ind. — Beginning soon, ideas of peace will travel to schools, churches, county fairs and other venues in the Dayton, Ohio, region in the guise of a colorful, 33-foot-long refurbished recreational vehicle largely transformed by teams of Earlham College students.

Sara Collins, Justin Brown and Devin O'Leary - all three students in Assistant Professor Mark Van Buskirk's Art Fundamentals class this semester - work on a mural decorating one side of a 25-year-old, 33-foot long recreational vehicle being refurbished for new life as the mobile extension of the Dayton International Peace Museum.

As the result of a recent chance meeting, organizers of the newly opened Dayton International Peace Museum sought help with the PeaceMobile project from Earlham Professor of History Carol Hunter, who subsequently recruited three groups of students in her History of Non-violent Movements course to create as class projects the exhibits that will be displayed in the converted RV. As well, four students in Assistant Professor of Art Mark Van Buskirk’s Art Fundamentals course — learning about the PeaceMobile from their classmates — expressed an eagerness for assisting the effort by painting the vehicle’s exterior with a colorful mural on one side and the museum’s name and logo on the other.

When completely outfitted early in 2005, the PeaceMobile, which in a previous incarnation was used for 25 years as a traveling classroom for reaching high school dropouts in Cincinnati, will serve as a traveling walk-through museum and roving advertisement for the Dayton museum that celebrated its opening in November.

Sometimes students question the purpose of certain assignments that professors give, says Collins. "But, when you have something like this, it's easier to see why you're doing it."

“It’s fun to think about something I helped to create rolling down the highway in the cause of peace,” says Sara Collins, a junior from Fort Wayne, Ind., who was one of the painters. “The concept of peace in the world is very important to me, as it is to the College.”

“Our main purpose with this project is education,” explains Ralph Dull, an Ohio farmer and peace activist who along with his wife, Christine, conceived Dayton’s peace museum. “We hope we can attract attention and offer materials and information to get people to think about non-violence, particularly active non-violence.”

One of the PeaceMobile’s principal audiences, Dull adds, will be school children.

“Whenever we have discussions about spreading the ideas of peace and non-violence, those discussions always come back to children,” says Dull. “We are using this project to reach out to children and young people who are so bombarded with images of violence. We want them to know that non-violence is possible and preferred. What we have found is that we can reach more children by fitting a program into their school curriculum and taking it there.”

Katie Jones, a first-year from West Lafayette, Ind., is a member of the College team that created an exhibit about winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. The exhibit was included in the museum’s grand opening celebration in Dayton and will be among the first of its traveling displays.

“Basically we did profiles of about 25 Nobel Peace Laureates and we included some history of the Nobel Peace Prize,” says Jones. The exhibit includes a PowerPoint presentation, framed images of the prizewinners, and relevant discussion questions for various age groups from elementary school students through adults.

Meanwhile, other teams are working on exhibits that highlight successful non-violent movements. For example, teaching units are being prepared regarding leaders of the South African anti-apartheid movement and subsequent truth and reconciliation efforts, as well as about the U.S. civil rights and women’s suffrage movements. There also will be a flexible curriculum designed to teach cooperation and non-violence through experiential exercises.

The students involved say they have enjoyed contributing to a project dedicated to promoting peace. Collins, in particular, also appreciates having worked on a class assignment destined to produce concrete, visible results.

Sometimes students question the purpose of certain assignments that professors give, says Collins. “But, when you have something like this,” she continues, “it’s easier to see why you are doing it.”

“A lot of times students get stuck in the campus ‘bubble,’” Jones says. “Even as students, it’s good to take your ideals and principals and apply them to the world. This is a class project that has real-world applications.”

Kristen Sutcliffe, a senior from Pittsburgh, says painting the PeaceMobile was the perfect complement to her double major in art and Peace and Global Studies.

“I think the most difficult part was figuring out the logistics,” Sutcliffe says.

Using a $500 budget, the team that created the exterior mural researched the types of paint to use, then cleaned and primed the exterior, chose the paint colors, and incorporated slight changes to another artist’s proposal for the mural.

Justin Brown, a senior from Washington state, says being part of the PeaceMobile’s development has been an interesting challenge.

“I think that this was a really interesting way to use art in order to fulfill someone else’s vision,” Brown says, “and I like that it will be used to further the cause of peace, because that’s what we do here at Earlham.”

— EC —

Contact:
Denise Purcell, public affairs assistant
765/983-1323 — E-Mail Denise

Earlham College · 801 National Road West · Richmond, Indiana 47374-4095
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This page last updated: October 25, 2004