Peace Scholarship

2024 Scholarship Details

What is one conflict you have read about or experienced? How was the conflict resolved? Was the resolution effective? Why or why not? Responses can take several forms, such as an academic essay, short story, personal experience, or a set of poems.

  • Submissions should be sent to [email protected] with the Subject line “CPJR Scholarship.”
  • All Bergen students are eligible to participate.
  • Responses must be typed, double-spaced, with Times New Roman 12 point font.
  • Students’ names and contact information (email address and phone number) should appear on the title page.
  • Stories and essays should be no more than 1,500 words (approximately five pages).
  • Poetry should consist of more than one poem.
  • Academic essays should follow MLA standards regarding attribution of quotations and citations.
  • Entries will be judged by members of the Center for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation steering committee.
  • Scholarship winners will be recognized at the awards luncheon
  • Top 3 submissions receive awards $1000, $750, $500
  • Deadline for submission: Friday, April 26, 2024

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Spring 2023 winners

First Place prize of $1,000: Yeyson Lopez

Second Place prize of $750: Andrea Huerta

Third Place prize of $500: Yaroslav Pasichnyk and Rod Gonzalez (tie)

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Spring 2022 winners

  • First Place prize: Cassie Lacsina Guinto, “Don’t Cross the Street Alone”
  • Second Place prize: Tarik Emir Acikgoz, “When life isn’t complicated”
  • Third Place prize: Catherine Flores, “Religion Does Not Mean Losing Your Freedom”
  • Honorable Mention: Melissa Giltner “The Real American Dream”

Spring 2021 winners

  • 1st Place prize – Jeonghwa Seo, “I am another Jackie Chan”
  • 2nd Place prize – Genesis Hernandez, “Some Stories are Still Being Written”
  • 3rd Place prize – MacKenzie Szabo, “The Closet: A Set of Confessional Poems”
  • Honorable Mention – Amanda Lopes, “The Cuban Missile Crisis”

Spring 2019 winners

  • 1st Place – Aleksandra Malinowski, “Bones” (Poetry)
  • 2nd Place – Bryan Alcantara, “Life Experience and DACA” (Memoir)
  • 3rd Place – Dewa Syedmatiullah, “Abusing Young Boys in Afghanistan” (Essay)

Spring 2017 winners

  • 1st Prize – Jade Gabrielle Catral – Convert or Die: Cultural Genocide (essay)
  • 2nd Prize – Hannah Greenwald – An Open Letter to My Uber Driver (creative nonfiction)
  • 3rd Prize – Anonymous – Lack of Education: a Conflict to Resolve (essay)

Spring 2016 winners:

  • First Place: Sana Azizah Khan “The Second City: the Humanitarian Crises of Gang Violence”  – Sana describes gang violence in Chicago’s South Side and proposes potential solutions to the problems plaguing America’s “second cities.”
  • Second Place: Binah Ezra “Far from the Home I Love”  – Binah focuses on the challenges of living as an Iranian Jew in the turbulent years leading up to the Iranian revolution.
  • Third Place: Faith Okoko “Peace and Blame are Opposites” – Faith recounts her experience with ethnic and political violence in Kenya.