They were tired of being raped and abused, tired of their children being sentenced to death as child soldiers. In 2003, the women of Liberia came together by the thousands, a single goal in mind: peace now.

They called themselves the mothers of Liberia, the ones who were devoted to bring about peace for themselves and their children through non-violent means. Christians and Muslims together, they formed The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace campaign, held signs and made up songs about peace, enduring the Liberian heat in white T-shirts and hair ties.

Their story attracted international attention.

Years later, after successfully bringing peace to the people of Liberia, their leader, Leymah Gbowee, will speak at Indiana Wesleyan University’s Marion campus Feb. 16 on the subject of peace and reconciliation.

Gbowee, along with Yemeni activist Yawakkul Karman and the current Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her role in bringing peace to Liberia after the most recent civil war.

“The thing that is the most impressive to me about her story is how she is an ordinary Liberian woman. She doesn’t come from the elite class of Liberia, from one of the older Liberian tribal groups. And she acted, really, out of necessity,” said Dr. Lisa Toland, associate director of the John Wesley Honors College and coordinator for Gbowee’s IWU visit.

Gbowee, along with more than 2,500 women, staged peace protests in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, attempting to attract the attention of Liberia’s oppressive former president, Charles Taylor. The women, an assembled group of Christian and Muslim women from all walks of life,  demanded an end to the violence instigated by Taylor’s troops and pushed for official peace talks between high-level government and rebel leaders. To prove their point to the men in the community, the women instigated a sex strike, calling for peace. After being ignored, the women threatened to remove their clothing in public, a shameful action in Liberian culture.

Eventually, the women’s work spread to other communities within Liberia, as well as neighboring Ghana.

To Dr. Norman Wilson, associate professor of intercultural studies at IWU, Gbowee’s  courage and optimism are examples of the power of overcoming differences and stereotypes to unite for a common cause.

“Throughout much of Africa and in parts of the world, the role of women has been underestimated and de-emphasized. And what is just so wonderfully refreshing and surprising is that God used women to break through stereotypes and to be instruments through whom He could introduce a whole new perspective to the situation,” Wilson said.

Wilson, who visited Liberia a number of times through his work with the organization Global Partners, had the opportunity to observe Liberians at various stages of the most recent civil war, noting their optimism and resiliency.

In preparation for Gbowee’s visit, the IWU community had the opportunity to view a critically acclaimed documentary on the Liberian women’s movement called “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” Through talkback sessions and dialogue in various classes, students were invited to grapple with the issue within the film.

“It’s not a perfect story, she’ll tell you that – about the bitterness and the anger. It’s a very human experience, and it would be disturbing to me if it wasn’t a very human experience,” said Toland.

According to Toland, both the film and Gbowee’s testimony speak to many relevant issues for the IWU community.

“All kinds of aspects of the human experience that favit in with her being here. Everything from gender studies, the racial studies, economics, international politics, and the list goes on and on,” Toland said. “So I think, on one hand this is an opportunity for there to be a central event around which we have multiple interdisciplinary conversations.”

Gbowee will speak at the Chapel Auditorium Feb. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

“I think our campus is ready; I think our campus has to be ready,” said Toland. “Because I think that her experience represents the experience of many other people’s lives in the world, lives torn apart of warfare and economic and class divisions and religious divisions.”

To many, Gbowee’s story serves not only as an example of courage, but a testimony of the possibility of peace.

“It’s one of those things where it’s a beautiful story of seeing how a peace movement was actually able to be accomplished,” said Laurel Stone (sr), an international relations major who has spent the last six years researching issues in Western Africa.

“I think the very fact that it was achieved shows that there is the ability for it to happen again and I think it also shows a movement, a larger movement in Africa, specifically, but also in the world, really, of seeing the effects of peace and reconciliation and restoration rather than clinging on to war,” Stone said.

After speaking during two chapel services Wednesday, Feb. 8, Christian peace activist Shane Claiborne answered questions during an afternoon talkback session hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University.

Prevailing topics included an in-depth discussion of Claiborne’s time in Iraq, his opinions on peace and the condition of the American church.

“Is there any credibility to Catholic sacraments and traditions like confession?” asked Emily Hathaway (alumna ‘11) during a Q-and-A portion of the talkback.

“As Protestants we sometimes forget what we were protesting in the first place,” said Claiborne. “There are value to some Catholic traditions. We have to keep in mind that many of these started with the first disciples and that, maybe, we should work harder to preserve them.”

Claiborne reiterated some of what he said during chapel about his experience in Iraq and spoke a bit more about his pacifist ideology.

“I’m pro-life, womb-to-tomb,” said Claiborne, emphasizing his belief that no situation truly necessitates a violent response.

The American church was a major topic in Claiborne and John Perkins’ book “Follow Me to Freedom.” Claiborne described the churches of the United States in the words of an Iraqi friend: “a mile long and an inch deep.”

Claiborne has worked with Willow Creek Church near Chicago and he will speak there in the near future.

“I love Willow Creek, and I love the work going on there,” said Claiborne. “But what stood out to me was that half of their curriculum was about how to get people into small groups!”

Many reactions to Claiborne’s visit have been positive.

“He’s really living Christianity, not the American Dream,” said Tiffany Harris (so). “He’s living a life like the one Christ lived. He wasn’t interested in material possessions or anything like that. He was just interested in loving people.”

Claiborne works for the ministry The Simple Way, based in Philadelphia, Penn., and he speaks regularly in more than 100 countries and many of the United States.

Indiana Wesleyan University officials published a modified academic calendar in January, adding one class day to the fall 2012 semester and subtracting class time from spring 2013.

Changes to the calendar were first proposed in May 2011 after the U.S. Department of Education came out with the first federal definition of a “credit hour.”

“Everyone had to look at their credit hour practice, including us,” said Dr. Don Sprowl, assistant provost for institutional research and accreditation. This was to ensure that the number of credit hours met the new government standards.

Internal investigations revealed shortcomings in IWU’s academic timetable. Night classes and all classes that meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays lacked sufficient student-teacher contact hours, according to the new federal definition.

“Inconsistency was the number-one issue that we found,” said Karen Hoffman, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at IWU.

Hoffman led the task force responsible for making the adjustments. She and a diverse team that included representatives from the dean of the chapel’s office and the nursing pre-licensure division worked over the course of six months to develop an appropriate calendar.

“It was a complex undertaking,” said Hoffman.

The new calendar now starts the fall semester one day earlier – Labor Day in fall 2012 – so Monday-Wednesday-Friday classroom hours increase.

“Nobody wants to have class on Labor Day,” said Sprowl, “but it’s the only way to balance classes without doing something too radical. This is as close as you can get to perfectly balancing the calendar without altering the structure of it.”

Dr. Darlene Bressler, vice president and dean of IWU’s College of Arts and Sciences, pointed out that IWU had been in the “vast minority” of higher education institutions by not starting classes before Labor Day, which she said is “important for students to remember.”

The new calendar is also different for fall break. Friday classes will meet on the Thursday before students leave for fall break, providing another small boost in the number of contact hours for Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes.

In spring semesters to come, Tuesday-Thursday classes will end earlier than normal, providing students with two class-free “study days” during the week before final exams. At this point in the semester, IWU students will have spent more time in their Tuesday-Thursday classes than in their Monday-Wednesday-Friday courses. The study days help equalize the amount of time spent in all classes, regardless of when they meet.

Night classes also lacked sufficient classroom time when compared with the new government regulations. This was largely due to class cancellations imposed by Summit, IWU’s spiritual emphasis week, according to Sprowl. An official solution to this problem is not yet in place, but Hoffman said Dr. Jim Lo assured the committee that the chapel staff will do whatever needs to be done because IWU is foremost an academic institution.

Administrators have no intentions of cancelling Summit. They may instead push back the start time of evening services until after night classes have concluded.

“Summit is a critically important part of our calendar and our commitment,” said Bressler. It is “as important as classes, and so for Summit to be conflict-free was a wonderful design on Dr. Lo’s part.”

Thanks to the efforts of Sprowl, Hoffman and the committee, contact hours are now roughly equivalent from semester-to-semester and day-to-day.

“That is a strength for faculty and students who can now anticipate consistency for learning time in the classroom,” said Dr. Bressler. “The task force did an excellent job.”

There’s been “almost no negative feedback” related to the changes, according to Hoffman. “It is fair to characterize faculty as wanting to be consistent with class time and wanting to use [it] well,” she said.

“We do what we do with integrity,” said Hoffman. “If we are not in compliance with what the government says, maybe all of the students won’t recognize it, but it’s all to their benefit to have the increase in their academic calendar.”

A woman driven by her pursuit to capture a single moment in time to tell a deeper story of the unrevealed reality in her mind: Casey Brooks. A fashion photographer from Virginia Beach, she earned a bachelor’s degree in photography from Indiana Wesleyan University, and she has since moved on to New York City, where she works in the highly competitive industry of fashion.

Brooks’ interest in photography started when she was 16 years old. After snapping images with a point-and-shoot camera, visual art became the driving force in Brooks’ life.

Rob Curfman, a photography professor at IWU, got to know Brooks very well during her four years at IWU.

“She came in with a career mind early in the photo program,” said Curfman.

After graduating in 2007, Brooks worked as an assistant to photographers for three years in Nashville, Tenn., before moving to New York to break into fashion. In the competitive industry, Brooks was able to get sporadic work as a fashion photographer with not only local and national publications but also international magazines as well.

Her photographs have been published in Fiasco, a London-based magazine. Brooks has shot for New York Fashion Week and filmed a video for Models.com. American Eagle has also hired her for testing out a new brand and direction. Brooks said it is up in the air whether or not the company will use her photographs from the three-week shoot.

Despite success, Brooks has not forgotten her small private school beginnings.

“She has always come back to help pay back what she learned,” Curfman said, “always giving to my students knowledge and sharing technique.”

Ian Galloway (sr), a photography major, has been able to work with Brooks numerous times. He said he has learned a lot from her about connecting the academic and professional realms, what it takes to be in the field and how to work with clients.

“There are things on a shoot that can’t be replicated in the classroom,” said Galloway. “I have been honored to work and learn alongside of Casey Brooks.”

Being a pastor’s daughter and coming to a private Christian university, Brooks was always in the Christian realm, but now the fashion world is completely different.

“The biggest thing I’ve realized is sometimes it’s better to listen than to be heard,” Brooks said. She said, as a photographer, she works daily with many different people and gets a chance to show them what it looks like to be a servant-leader, a listener and a good friend.

Fashion is not Brook’s passion, but through fashion photography she has been able to create a conceptual fantasy world that pushes the edge of reality. She describes her work as edgy, poetic and cinematic with always a conceptual theme behind her images. Her creative process looks as though she views a movie in her mind, then sees the still points and that is what she photographs.

“I am merely a storyteller,” Brooks said, “I want someone to look at my work and feel a moment of emotion I felt when creating the storyline.”

Curfman described Brooks as a down-to-earth, passionate, relational woman who will succeed due to her “never quit” attitude even when the storms roll in. Her vision is to become a brand photographer who will get hired specifically for the type or feel of photography she creates, but until then, Brooks said, “My goal is to fake it till I make it.”