Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor Peter St. Jean Upgrades Paradigm from Violence to Peace
North Park University, rooted in the Christian faith, engages its talented faculty to educate an intercultural student population on the importance of a peaceful society.
Dr. Peter K. B. St. Jean, North Park Sociology and Criminal Justice Professor, researches and actively works with students and the community to upgrade the age-worn paradigm focus on violence to one of making peace profitable.
Focusing mainly on solutions to violence, St. Jean works directly with participants who have been conditioned, and rewarded, throughout their lives to concentrate their energy on violence. Instead, St. Jean shifts the attention in a positive direction, demonstrating a pathway towards living a life of peace.
Make a Living Out of Peace Rather Than Crime
“Violence has been made profitable through the costs of crime,” said St. Jean. Through teaching and outreach efforts, says St. Jean, there is a noticeable paradigm upgrade away from participating in an economy of violence to being involved in building an economy of peace — making peace profitable.
“Promoting the profits of peace — by showing disenfranchised communities that peace is a way of life — there is potential to realize a more peaceful Chicago, and world by extension,” said St. Jean.
St. Jean operates his research and leads students in community outreach efforts through the Urban Peace Lab within the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at North Park University.
In the sum of its three distinctive attributes — Christian, city-centered, and thoroughly intercultural — North Park University finds its unique value, its competitive advantage, and its opportunity to emerge as the model for Christian higher education in 21st Century America.