UNT’s peace studies program, founded by the late Steven C. Poe, has established the Castleberry Peace Institute at UNT in collaboration with Peacemakers Inc., a nonprofit organized in 1987 by Dallas resident Vivian Castleberry, a retired Dallas Times Herald editor.

The new institute will combine the strengths of the university’s academic programs in peace studies with the strengths of Peacemakers in community networking and programming, including support of peace education in elementary and secondary schools.

The Department of Political Science, which will house the institute, began its peace studies program in 2000. In Texas and the Southwest, UNT became the first university to offer a minor and certificate in the field and the only university to have an endowed professorship in peace studies.