Collaboratively Advancing Conflict Resolution Pedagogy
How do we effectively teach and promulgate conflict analysis and conflict resolution skills and knowledge? Answering this question was the focus of two recent conflict resolution education conferences held this year. The first, hosted on the Arlington Campus by the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution was the Sixth Annual Graduate Education Symposium on May 27, 2016. The second was the International Conflict Resolution Education Conference, in Columbus Ohio on June 8 -13, 2016. In both instances S-CAR faculty, staff and students actively contributed to both the organization and the content.
Joining the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), S-CAR co-ordinated a day long, two-part conference focusing on experiential learning and field-based courses. Designed as a smaller planning meeting of program directors and school administrators, a few students and practitioners from the field joined the session bringing the room total to about thirty people. Prof. Agnieszka Paczynska, S-CAR alumna Pushpa Iyer, and adjunct faculty member Dr. Andria Wisler presented a panel focusing on ethics in the course design and implementation, addressing diversity, and the question of integrating theory into practice. Rounding out the morning was a highly lauded constructive open – space technology workshop (where participants chose which topic they would like to contribute) discussing issues raised by the panel and the contributors in the room. Break-out sessions focused on Administrative and Pedagogical Challenges, ethical issues, evaluating change, and power discrepancies between North and South actors.
The afternoon welcomed non-profit organizations, government officials, and students from across the United States to participate in a more formal conference, starting in Founders Hall main meeting room with a keynote presentation by Dr. Siddarth Ashvin Shah, MD of Greenleaf Integrative Strategies Inc. Intertwining his life story and his work as a medical doctor, he discussed the role of trauma, self-care and practice in the field of conflict resolution. S-CAR alumnus Tatsushi Arai then presented an overview of the morning.
The first of the two afternoon sessions had two workshops. S-CAR alumnus and adjunct faculty member Dr. David J. Smith, PhD Candidate Ernest Ogbozor, and Sherrill Hayes from Kennesaw University highlighted findings from The Forage Center’s humanitarian intervention field training exercise, located in Fort Pierce, Florida. These High Impact Practices (HIPs) focused programs comprising of complex refugee and humanitarian intervention scenarios have been offered as an S-CAR elective. While a good alternative to expensive and dangerous placements abroad, the organizers noted that sustainability of the program can be a problem.
The other session in the first afternoon series of workshops focused on experiential learning via community placements. "Local backyard peacebuilding" is as effective in providing cross-cultural experiential learning opportunities as international ones argued S-CAR adjunct faculty and alumnae Dr. Adina Friedman. Such programs benefit however if they are long-term relationships, offer pay if course credit is not provided, should be built via professional mechanisms, and should promote understanding of the larger context and issues.
The second series of workshops rounding out the day had guest speakers from Eastern Mennonite University and New York University. Thomas Hill and Zachary Metz discussed how working with real-life clients provides students with excellent opportunities to explore action research, applying theory to practice and learn ethics and professional life skills. However, managing student, partner, and program expectations can be challenging.
Dr. Amy Knorr, S-CAR alumnus Dr. Jayne Docherty, and Dr. Roger Foster of Eastern Mennonite University discussed a long-term project supporting a West Virginia community. Incorporating ethics, practice and the ever-important lesson of avoiding the “savior complex’, students learn important skills that can be applied in other parts of the world. Similar to other presenters, these presenters focused on the challenges of maintaining the program, while highlighting its value.
The symposium closed with S-CAR Prof. Mara Schoeny and Prof. Necla Tschirgi from the Joan B. Kroc Center at the University of San Diego facilitating a feedback session. Participants hoped the community could continue to build connections and convene more spaces for conversations both in future symposia and in the interim between.
The theme for this year’s International Conflict Resolution Education Conference was Building Stronger Communities ThroughPeace, Justice and Security. The five day program included two days of pre-conference workshops, two days of the main conference and a one day special meeting for International education program coordinators to meet to discuss issues and ideas.
S-CAR was well represented throughout the week, with two pre-conference workshops hosted by Associate Dean and Prof. Julie Shedd. She presented a session on “Integrating Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Concepts intoCollege and University Courses” Also presenting was PhD Candidate Megan Price who organized a workshop on her dissertation topic When Students Misbehave: How Using Insight Skills Can Help YouDeescalate Conflict and Make Targeted and Supportive Disciplinary Decisions, K-12.
The main conference consisted of almost three hundred, sixty-minute breakout sessions over the two days. Again, Megan Price presented a paper on “How to Deescalate Conflict in the Moment: Skills from the Insight Approach”, and Julie Shedd, joined by S-CAR Director of Student Services Lisa Shaw and Diana Oritz and Dale Vergott presented a paper on “Mobilizing Community Assets with Student Engagement”. Julie Shedd and Lisa Shaw were later joined by S-CAR PhD candidate Alex Cromwell in another session on Field Based Peace Education: Organization and Impact. Prof. Patricia Maulden presented a paper entitled “AnApproach to Engaging Conflicts and Quandaries at theUniversity” and S-CAR Adjunct Professor Elavie Ndura discussed Building Stronger Communities in Higher Education Institutions: The Courage to Lead theQuest for Inclusive Excellence. The conference was organized with the assistance of S-CAR community members including Dr. Julie Shedd, Prof. David J. Smith, PhD candidate Molly Tepper, and M.S. student Faith Maweu.
Not only do conferences such as these provide a space for sharing of information and resources between schools and providing opportunities for students to learn more, these meetings help to create the next generation of practitioners. Embedded in the conversations about program effectiveness, about addressing trauma, about creating effective conflict resolution training tools, about teaching human rights and social justice, is an exploration of the core values and ideological approaches essential to integrating CAR theory into practice. What does it take to be teachers of practitioners and how should practice be taught? What is in store for the Field and what new paths and directions is the practice opening up as necessary sectors to be examined? How are our students contributing to the world and effectively helping to create peace? How do we build supportive communities of practice and how do we continue to engage in the conversations beyond these gatherings and beyond our borders? Moving forward, and the goal of these conferences, how do we strengthen the partnerships of academia and practitioners to fulfill the work of the Field?
Fortuitously, the hard work by the organizers, both within S-CAR and those supporting from other parts of the CAR education sector, is being continued into next year. Already the planning committee, guided by Adjunct Faculty Prof. Ron Fisher and Prof. Agnieszka Paczynska is working with Pushpa Iyer, who has kindly offered her Washington D.C. offices of her Center for Conflict Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey as the site for the next Graduate Education Symposium, next May in conjunction with the Alliance for Peacebuilding annual conference. Similarly, the International Conflict Resolution Education Conference is now accepting proposals for next years’ session, being held in two parts, first in Columbus, Ohio March 16 -19, 2017 and then a regional conference in Costa Rica June 19-th- 24th, 2017. For more information on how to apply, see the conference website at u.osu.edu/cre2017/.
Please consider joining the conversation. The themes this year for the International Conflict Resolution Education Conference is Tools for Preparing the Change Leaders of the Future: Social Enterprise, Innovation and Education”. However, please note that they also accept on a diversity of other subject areas such as dialogue-based processes, social justice, mediation, human trafficking, and use of technology. The Graduate Education Symposium is in the process of finalizing the theme, and will be placing a call for papers early in the new year. We look forward to seeing you there!