A Congregation of Leaders: ICAR's Directors from 1983-Present

ICAR’s first director was the remarkable Bryant Wedge, a charismatic Yale psychiatrist and social scholar who pioneered the use of psychoanalytic concepts to interpret the behavior of political leaders, and who helped create the original Center for Conflict Resolution at George Mason in 1981. With his colleague and successor, former Foreign Service Officer Henry C. Barringer, and with the support of future ICAR director James H. Laue, Wedge led the fight for a National Peace Academy, which eventuated in the creation of the US Institute for Peace.

George Mason sociologist Joseph Scimecca succeeded to the directorship in 1986. Under his leadership, a group consisting of John Burton, Dennis Sandole, Kevin Avruch, and others succeeded in creating and securing approval for the nation’s first doctoral program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. They also won a major, multiyear institutional grant from the James and Flora Hewlett Foundation and, with the support of Edwin and Helen Lynch, established the first chaired professorship in Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

Richard Rubenstein, currently University Professor at ICAR, served as director from 1989-1991. During his term of office, the Center for Conflict Analysis and Resolution became a free-standing Institute, the Lynch Lectures were initiated, ICAR convened the nation’s first major conference on the News Media and Conflict Resolution, and John Burton’s and Frank Dukes’ four-volume Conflict series was published by Macmillan/ St. Martin’s Press with participation by other faculty members. Rubenstein’s successor, Christopher Mitchell (1991- 94), initiated the process by which ICAR would later become a Commonwealth of Virginia Center of Excellence, as well as the leading institutional home for Zones of Peace research. Mitchell strengthened ICAR’s commitment to reflective practice and organized major conferences on negotiation before becoming the first Drucie French Cumbie Chair of Conflict Resolution.

Kevin Clements, a New Zealander and secretary-general of the International Peace Research Association, became ICAR’s director in 1994 and served until 1997. His administration saw the first significant jump in numbers of graduate students, and completed the process by which ICAR became a Commonwealth Center of Excellence. Rapid growth continued during the directorship of Sandra Cheldelin (1997-2000), current holder of the Vernon and Minnie Lynch Chair of Conflict Resolution, who used her considerable organizational skills to make peace within the Institute and improve relations with the University, as well as raising significant funds for ICAR research, and beginning the work with Daniel Druckman and Larissa Fast which would later produce ICAR’s first all-faculty textbook, Conflict: From Analysis to Intervention, now in its second edition.

Sara Cobb, ICAR’s longest-serving director, served from 2000 until 2008 and oversaw the largest growth burst in Institute history. Under her leadership, the beautiful property at Point of View in Mason’s Neck Virginia, left to ICAR under the will of Edwin and Helen Lynch, was funded and developed into a workable center for meetings and home to graduate fellows. Sara presided over the creation of George Mason’s first undergraduate program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, originally directed by Professor Susan Hirsch, which now boasts several hundred majors. She instituted administrative reforms that gave ICAR its first genuinely effective administrative staff. And she actively promoted trends, which positioned the Institute as a “player” in the world of Washington, D.C. without sacrificing its political and intellectual independence.

Former ICAR Directors: Left side, top to bottom: Bryant M. Wedge, Henry Barringer, James Laue and Kevin Clements. Right side, top to bottom: Joseph Scimecca, Richard Rubenstein, Christopher Mitchell, Sandra Cheldelin, and Sara Cobb. Photos for Wedge, Barringer, Laue, Rubenstein, Mitchell, Clements, Cheldelin, and Cobb: ICAR. Scimecca Photo: GMU.