Detailed Timeline of Activities: 2025 to present
2025
January 22, 23, 24, 2025
The Center hosts students from the Soka University of America Learning Cluster led by Dr. Tetsushi Ogata on human betterment through religion for a series of interfaith activities. On day one students attended a panel discussion on successful interfaith peacebuilding practices featuring five scholars. On day two they met with students in Joshua Snyder’s interfaith program at Boston College, and on day three they met with members of the Mosaic: Interfaith Youth Action.
January 31, 2025
The first Dialogue Night of 2025 focuses on exploring communication styles. Led by the Center’s Preandra Noel, the event featured activities in which participants engaged with the Ikeda Center’s four Dialogue Commitments and nine Dialogue Ground Rules.
February 28, 2025
The Center hosts the first Dialogue Nights Lite event of the year, with participants engaging in activities designed to strengthen and deepen their dialogue skills.
March 28, 2025
The second Dialogue Nights of 2025 welcomes Eliza O’Neil of the Constructive Dialogue Institute who introduced participants to her organization’s unique and time-tested approach to the art and practice of dialogue, in all its forms.
April, 2025
The Ikeda Center program team travels to Nagasaki to engage in education activities relating to nuclear weapons history and current abolition efforts.
May 9–11, 2025
The Center hosts the inaugural Educating for Peace conference, devoted to exploring best and promising practices for teaching nuclear disarmament issues in secondary and college classrooms. The weekend kicked off with a panel discussion held at Askwith Hall at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The panelists were:
Meira Levinson, Harvard Graduate School of Education, moderator
Ira Helfand, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Ivana Nikolić Hughes, Columbia University and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Emma Pike, Lex International
Masako Toki, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
June 21, 2025
The 2025 iteration of the Ikeda Center’s annual Global Citizens Seminar featured the participation of fourteen doctoral students representing ten countries of origin exploring two key themes from the work of Daisaku Ikeda – hope and the closely-related activity of value creation. The seminar was led and moderated by professors Jason Goulah of DePaul University and Tim McCarthy of Harvard University.
June 5, 2025
The annual Indigo Talk features remarks from Dr. Darren Kew, Dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. His talk was called “Reflections on Religion and Peacebuilding.” The virtual talk was attended by 135 people from 13 countries around the world.
June 27, 2025
The second Dialogue Nights Lite of 2025 welcomes participants for more dialogue skill building activities.
July 2025
Ikeda Center Education Fellows mid-program seminar welcomes the fellows in our 2024–2026 cohort.
August 29:
The third Dialogue Nights of the year commemorates the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with Dr. Joe Hodgkin of Mass General Hospital and Molly McGinty of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
September 26, 2025
The 21st Annual Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue addresses the topic, “Engaging Difference in an Age of Division: The Power of Dialogue and Human Revolution in Restoring our Shared Humanity.” The panelists were:
Catia Confortini, Wellesley College, moderator
Nadya Hajj, Wellesley College
Anna Ikeda, Soka Gakkai International
James McCarty, Boston University
October 17, 2025
The third Dialogue Nights Lite of the year continues the DN Lite tradition of helping participants practice dialogue skills.