For a more streamlined read, note the following:

–links to each CJP program are omitted. To learn more about the specific programs named here, please visit the .

— a faculty or staff member’s title is listed once, on first reference. To learn more about individual faculty and staff members, visit the .

Our alumni are accomplished people and a wonderful resource, which is why we include a link to each personal profile on the . This information is provided and updated voluntarily.

September 2019

• A class of 22 new graduate students begin their first semester of studies.
• The new graduate students participate in CJP’s Grounding Day: an opportunity to begin to ground students in the history and current social, political, economic and environmental justice realities in Harrisonburg.
• Fidele Ayu Lumeya MA ’00 returns to the Democratic Republic of Congo to direct the Congo Ubuntu Peacebuilding Center.
• Talibah Aquil MA ’19 performs “Ghana, remember me…,” a multimedia production that sprung from her 2019 travels in Ghana as part of her capstone project on the themes of identity, race, trauma and healing.
• Twenty-one participants join STAR 1 on campus with Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield and Ayman Kerols MA ’16.

October 2019

• CJP’s 25th anniversary year kicks off with a “TenTalks” event at EMU’s Homecoming and Family Weekend featuring Tammy Krause MA ‘99, Darsheel Kaur MA ‘17, and John E. Sharp, father of Michael J. Sharp ’05.
• Donna Minter, founder and executive director of the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and STAR Trainer, is honored with the Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence.
• Professor Johonna Turner, co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, gives the keynote address at a symposium on restorative justice hosted by the University of Richmond Public Interest Law Review. Attorney Brenda Waugh MA ’09 provides a talk on restorative lawyering and Suzanne Praill MA ’10, director of restorative justice at the Fairfield Center, contributes to a panel discussion.
• In collaboration with , CJP hosts Community Criminal Justice Days conference, bringing together community stakeholders for discussions and planning around reducing incarceration and recidivism in the local area.
• Howard Zehr, distinguished professor of restorative justice, is the featured speaker at the 2019 Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Lecture at George Mason University.

November 2019

• CJP co-sponsors a conference in Mexico City on the intersection of gender and peacebuilding: “Construcción de Paz con Perspectiva de Género” at the University Iberoamericana, a Jesuit-affiliated institution. Alena Yoder, CJP’s program development associate, was a panel moderator. Vernon Jantzi, emeritus professor, and Jayne Docherty, CJP executive director, presented papers. 
• STAR trainers facilitate a workshop for the Grand Canyon National Park’s Public Lands for all Inclusion Summit to explore principles of restorative justice, trauma awareness, resilience, and truth and reconciliation and how those principles might be applied in the organizations and the workplaces. Read about STAR’s ongoing relationship with the National Park Service.
• Kajungu Mturi MA ‘18 facilitates a day of trauma and resilience training for EMU’s Intensive English Program staff and instructors.
• Gilberto Pérez Jr. ’94 GC ’99, vice president for student life at Goshen College, wins his bid for a city council seat in Goshen, Indiana. He will be the first Latino council member in a city that is 33-34% Latino.
• A Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice features multiple speakers on engaging communities of faith in promoting restorative justice, along with specific avenues and resources for collaborating with Catholic parishes and ministries.
• Eighteen people participate in STAR 2 with Katie Mansfield and Lisa Collins.

December 2019

• Katie Mansfield and Jon Swartz MA ‘14 facilitate three days of STAR-based training for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution, including Sigal Shoham MA ’13.
• EMU recognizes Dawn Curtis-Thames MA ’20 and David Nyiringabo MA ’20, then second-year CJP students,  for their outstanding contributions to CJP and the larger university community. Read about their practicum studies.

January 2020

• Wayne Marriott MA ’18, a conflict coach and mediator based in Christchurch, New Zealand, receives the Resolution Institute’s 2019 Michael Klug Award for his support to the local community after the mosque shootings there last year.
• The 10-episode Peacebuilder podcast launches, featuring faculty and staff members reflecting on the program’s history and their own peacebuilding work.
• Twenty-two people, including 11 CJP MA students, participate in STAR 1 on campus with Katie Mansfield and Johonna Turner.

February 2020

• The fifth annual SPI Community Day welcomes about 100 participants to get a taste of Summer Peacebuilding Institute classes and hear from speakers on racial justice, including Chief Kenneth Branham of the Monacan nation and Frank Dukes, a professor at the University of Virginia.
• Professor Emeritus Barry Hart is the keynote speaker at a seminar organized by Initiatives of Change Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, discussing the role restorative justice could play in restoring and healing wounded people to create a more just society.
• The Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice hosts a webinar on Equal Justice USA’s approach to the relationship between community and police in Newark, N.J., and how trauma-informed responses to violence that are community-driven can reduce harm for those most vulnerable and marginalized.
• Ten people join Kajungu Mturi MA ‘18 and Katie Mansfield at a STAR 1 training on campus.
• Katie Mansfield presents on a panel titled “Healing and Resilience: Taking a trauma-informed approach to delivering assistance” sponsored by the Peace and Security Workgroup of the Society for International Development-Washington Chapter. 

March 2020

• CJP staff and faculty start working remotely and moving academic classes online due to COVID-19.
• STAR provides three days of training for the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
• The 25th Anniversary Celebration, planned for the summer, is postponed for a year. The new dates are June 4-6, 2021. Alicia Garza, John Paul Lederach and sujatha baliga are among the scheduled speakers who plan to attend.
• Katie Mansfield launches the virtual community Dancing Resilience, through which participants all over the world meet via video conference multiple times a day to dance together. 
• The Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice hosts a virtual book launch for (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020), by Lindsey Pointer, Kathleen McGoey, and Haley Farrar.

April 2020

• SPI announces its move to an all-online format.
• Donors help to meet two $35,000 matching grants set up by two couples and gave generously during LovEMU Day in honor of CJP’s 25th anniversary.
• Cole Parke MA ’12 and Emmanuel Bombande MA ’02 are named as 2020 Peacebuilder of the Year honorees.
• STAR releases the Care “Together” video series: conversations between Katie Mansfield, STAR trainers and practitioners. 

May 2020

• SPI 2020 marks the 26th year of gathering peacebuilders for mutual learning and support – online this year using video conferencing and other digital tools. Eleven courses are offered to more than 180 people across 60% of the world’s time zones. Read general news coverage here, and more specific articles about creating community online and the digital peacebuilding class.                       
• Sixteen CJP graduates representing nine countries receive their degrees. 
• Johonna Turner is one of the three faculty presented with EMU’s annual Excellence in Teaching Awards.
• Christine Kindler MA ’17 receives the Berlin Fellowship from Humanity in Action.
• The new Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership is launched earlier than expected as CJP moves online. The degree with online, hybrid and residential options for working professionals includes courses in business and leadership and will continue to add courses from other programs at EMU as electives.

June 2020

• SkyHorse Publishing releases a new edition of Carolyn Yoder‘s Little Book of Trauma Healing.
• STAR provides a webinar for Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency’s Service Coordinators and Case Managers on trauma and resilience.

July 2020

• STAR trains campus ministry professionals at the National Association of Campus Ministers virtual conference.
• An advisory group of STAR trainers and practitioners work with Katie Mansfield to recreate STAR for online delivery. The group includes Donna Minter, Crixell Shell, Ram Bhagat GC ’19, Lisa Collins, Meenakshi Chhabra, and Johonna Turner. Elaine Zook Barge MA ’03, Vernon Jantzi, and Carolyn Yoder provide additional input and insight.
• STAR announces registration for STAR online.
• Johonna Turner contributes a chapter to Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities (Living Justice Press, 2020), a collection of 18 essays penned by practitioners and scholars of color.

August  2020

• STAR wraps up four webinars for National Park Service staff.
• CJP welcomes 30 new students for orientation. This includes nine students in the new MA in Transformational Leadership program, with online, hybrid and residential options.
• Planning continues for the CJP “25+1” anniversary celebration.

When the (SPI) moved online this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it lost some of the aspects that attract people to the ��ݮ���� (EMU) program each summer, like in-person networking and conversations shared over meals. 

But it also opened the door for many to attend who otherwise couldn’t due to travelling and attendance costs, visa complications, and work commitments, said SPI director Bill Goldberg. “SPI is known for dialogue and deep conversations and our initial feedback from participants and professors suggests that the online format was a place where that still happened.”

This year, over 180 participants from 27 different countries tuned in to SPI sessions via video conference.

SPI is known for dialogue and deep conversations and our initial feedback from participants and professors suggests that the online format was a place where that still happened.

Bill Goldberg, SPI director

For a few groups, the online format and lowered cost allowed them to enroll an entire team. The Jamaica Mennonite Conference sent four pastors to SPI, sponsored by a grant from the C.P. and Izetta Yoder Mission Endowment Fund administered by Everence. Clyde Kratz, executive conference minister of Virginia Mennonite Conference, applied for the funding to assist in equipping Jamaican church leaders.

Kratz said he saw an opportunity for the pastors to apply the SPI courses to both their secular jobs and pastoral assignments. Many of the pastors in the conference also work in area schools. 

“In my conversation with a number of pastors in Jamaica, I learned about their vocational endeavors in the school system and I believed that SPI’s educational components could benefit their work associated with the school as well as the congregation,” Kratz said.

Dillion Sinclair is a primary school guidance counselor. He and his wife, Esther, lead the Waterloo Mennonite Church in Kingston.  

“The experience has been great, meeting and interacting with people from various parts of the world and also being taught by a dynamic lecturer,” Sinclair said. He took Lisa Schirch‘s class, “Digital Peacebuilding and Peace Tech.” 

“There were quite a few valuable things I learnt, but if I should choose one, it would be understanding the power of online communication for either good or evil, and the great task a peacebuilder has to counter online issues such as polarism and extremism,” he said. 

Kratz said that, had SPI not gone online, he would have only been able to sponsor one attendee, given the costs of transportation, lodging and meals.

A team from the Church of England’s Diocese of Chester also found this an opportunity to learn together. Seven priests and administrators attended the “Trauma, Resilience, and Healing in Times of the Pandemic” course taught by Al Fuertes.

“I want to give the people I minister to and teach the language to be able to talk about what they are living through – to be able to name this time as ‘trauma’ and to use that naming as a starting point,” said Jenny Bridgman, a parish priest who also trains men and women for lay ministry. “Through Al’s teaching and the group sharing I have learned several approaches that might help me lead people to a place of healing beyond this time.”

Bridgman’s colleague and classmate, Christine Broad, is rector of the parish of Woodchurch, and dean of women in ministry in the Diocese of Chester. She intends to offer support to her colleagues as they navigate the pandemic’s effects on their communities, churches, and individual congregants. Broad said the SPI experience has been “amazing.”

What has she found most valuable about the course?

“Increased knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of trauma,  increased knowledge of resilience and healing processes, privilege of participating in an international learning community, privilege of learning from experts in the field … so on and so forth – so much!” Broad said.

If you missed SPI this year, CJP offers many online trainings and courses for credit or no-credit. View the full offerings of online programs at EMU here.

SPI FUN FACT: This summer’s institute included 184 participants from 27 different countries and 29 U.S. states. They resided in 60 percent of the time zones on the planet.

In May, the hosted the first of two virtual opening ceremonies to kick off its five-week programming — the beginning of a grand experiment for the 25-year-old program, pushed into the virtual learning space by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eleven courses were offered, for academic credit or professional development, on conflict analysis, organizational assessment, leadership, trauma awareness, restorative justice, circle processes, and extremism in social media, among other topics.

That two different opening ceremonies were scheduled highlights one success before SPI even started: the online format — with its corresponding lower investments of costs and time for participants — expanded access to a broader diverse group of peacebuilders, among them those with family and work constraints.

This summer’s 184 participants from 27 different countries and 29 U.S. states covered 60 percent of the time zones on the planet. SPI Director Bill Goldberg and staff charted out the number of residents in each of the 13 represented time zones so that courses and extracurricular events, like coffee breaks and Horizons of Change lectures, were scheduled when the most participants could attend. 

If anyone was concerned about how different a virtual SPI would be, those fears were partially resolved by the constant volume of enthusiasm streaming into the chat box during May’s virtual opening ceremony. A few contributions highlight the underlying spirit of the exchange:

• I’ve learned how interconnected we all are even if we have never met!
• It’s cool to see people who are here because the opportunity was moved online.
• Diverse places, people and passions!
• Different people, different perspectives – the opening of minds together!
• People are engaged in social justice and peacebuilding despite our current health and economic crisis. That’s very inspiring!
• People are committed to learn from one another including me as well.

Coffee and networking

Over the next five weeks, with rigorous engagement happening within the formal space of virtual classrooms, SPI staff also wanted to offer informal spaces for networking and sharing — often cited by past participants as equally rich sites of personal and intellectual transformation. 

While no substitute for late-night chats in the residence halls or the companionship of a walk around campus, twice weekly coffee breaks helped to foster the kind of informal interaction that is a hallmark of the SPI experience. These events, open to participants and the broader CJP community, were hosted by online community builders Lindsay Acker and Anisa Leonard. 

Acker is a 2020 EMU graduate with a degree in peacebuilding and development and a CJP graduate student who worked for SPI the last two summers. Leonard is a senior social work major and joined SPI in 2019. 

Both were a little uncertain about how SPI 2020 would go, but acknowledged  the momentum and their own comfort level grew from the opening ceremony to the first several coffee breaks. 

Spontaneous discoveries were always a particular delight to everyone in the “room,” Leonard said. “Someone would suddenly notice an old friend was on the call. I really enjoyed watching their faces suddenly light up, and hearing them try to catch up with each other about life.”

On another occasion, one person’s mention of their workplace led to the discovery of mutual acquaintances within the agency and a wish to work together on future projects.

‘A vital role’: space to process and share

In coffee break chats, many participants also affirmed the online move. In addition to those who said they would not have otherwise been able to attend, many said that their course and other activities were helping them to “survive quarantine,” or as global protests erupted after the murder of George Floyd, “to process the continued violence against people of color and particularly black people in the United States,” Acker said. 

“That feedback reminded me that even though we couldn’t physically be together this summer, the Summer Peacebuilding Institute still played a vital role in helping peacebuilders with their work. Even though we couldn’t form the same relationships that we could have in person, we still learned from each other, still passed on skills and information, and still strengthened this network of peacebuilders.”

Mary Nitzsche, an associate executive minister with Mosaic Mennonite Conference, shares learnings from the SPI course

Horizons of Change series continues

One other tradition continued in the new format: the Horizons of Change series. Speakers addressed a range of topics, with particular emphasis on current contexts of the global pandemic and racial justice work.

•  Patrick Campbell MA ‘14, the senior emergency manager for Montgomery County, Maryland, shared about his management of the COVID-19 response in one of the most diverse counties in the United States. He works with hundreds of organizations to provide emergency and disaster assistance that is culturally appropriate and trauma-informed. Prior to this, he worked with Red Cross Virginia and served with the U.S. Coast Guard. 
• Shoqi Maktary MA ‘07 is the senior regional conflict sensitivity advisor for the Middle East and North Africa  at Search for Common Ground. Shoqi has over 16 years of international experience in program management, partnership building, and donor relations. He spoke about the challenges of implementing conflict sensitivity in the context of ongoing violent conflicts, how to promote peace-oriented aid, and the overlap between conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding.
• Jessica Pope is the interpretation, resource education and volunteer program manager at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa. She focused on the history of the National Park Service, which manages battlefields, historical monuments, heritage areas and migrant trails, places that straddle the difficult history of the United States. Her talk addressed the ways in which parks can attract and serve a larger, more diverse population of users; their potential role in helping the nation examine, discuss, grieve from and ultimately begin to heal from and reconcile difficult history; and the role of restorative justice practices in the art of interpretation.
• Amy Rebecca Marsico MA ‘09 is a former gender and youth advisor for Mercy Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo and currently serves as a volunteer coordinator with Flatbush United Mutual Aid. She discussed her work to increase the economic and resilience capacities of food insecure households in DRC as well as local efforts to address food insecurity in Brooklyn, New York.

SPI 2021 will begin May 11. 

In the seventh installment of the Peacebuilder podcast, Bill Goldberg, director of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI), speaks on the importance of grassroots and domestic peacebuilding, even in ��ݮ����’s (EMU) own backyard and campus.

The podcast is just one of the ways the center is celebrating its 25-year anniversary. Hosted by CJP executive assistant and anniversary celebration committee chair Patience Kamau MA ‘17, the 10-episode series features faculty and staff members reflecting on the history of CJP and their own peacebuilding work. A new episode drops every other week on the Peacebuilder website.

Goldberg jokes that he “married in” to the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) through his wife, former faculty member Lisa Schirch. His background was in international relations that often dealt with negotiations between world leaders. At CJP, though, he saw the value of grassroots-level peacebuilding.

“It actually was more important than the high level. That the high level negotiations would always fall apart if it wasn’t backed by lower level and by communities working together,” Goldberg says. He started taking classes at CJP, then picked up a few short-term contracts, like arranging transportation for SPI. He became the director in 2014.

Goldberg’s predecessors, Pat Martin and Sue Williams, taught him a lot.

“Pat had an open door policy that no matter what she was doing, no matter what time of day it was, if someone came to her office to talk, she would just drop everything and be with that person,” he says. “And with Sue, her analytical mind was just incredible,” whether it was arranging classes or “speaking truth to power.” 

One major change Goldberg has witnessed in his time at CJP is a shift towards domestic work, rather than focusing on international conflicts. In his early days he recalls international students challenging the faculty and staff – “you have to fix your own problems as well as help us fix ours. And I think it took 10, 15 years for that realization to set in.”

This change has accelerated in the last few years, he says, due to fewer visas being approved – meaning domestic-born students are now in the majority at CJP – and a surge in white supremacist rhetoric across the U.S. and in Harrisonburg itself.

“It’s just become much easier to be open about racism and bigotry, and to actually be a racist and a bigot out in the open, and so we’re now seeing the need to combat that more,” says Goldberg.

While Goldberg sees this as a necessary and powerful shift, there are still ways he thinks EMU as a whole could improve: like hiring non-Christians as full-time faculty. Goldberg himself is Jewish, and while he understands the value of a Christian Mennonite university, the hiring policy “implies to others, only those who are Christian have the values to teach here.”

First published 4/14.

SPI Online 2020 is slated for a fully online delivery, and administrators are seeing a previously untapped market of prospective participants who could not have afforded to travel or would not have been issued a visa in the current environment.

“Since 9/11 it has gotten more and more difficult for those who want to join SPI to get visas. We are excited that so many will be able to join us this year. It is a good reminder that every crisis is also an opportunity if we can rethink our assumptions about how things must be done,” said, CJP executive director.

Much of the unique value of SPI, as longtime attendees know, is the opportunity to learn from peacebuilders from around the world within and outside of classes. SPI administrators are rising to the challenge of fostering connection and relationships, even in a technological format.

“It’s forced us to articulate our culture,” said Docherty. That means “opportunities for people to learn from each other, not just from the instructor,” as well as opportunities for reflection on how students will apply the teachings to their own peacebuilding practices. 

“This is engaged learning online,” Docherty said. 

Course offerings have changed somewhat in light of this new format – some will just be available for professional development, and some for academic credit. CJP has reduced the cost of both types of classes: $495 per professional development course and $656 per credit hour for academic credit courses.

The classes will all run simultaneously from May 11 to June 12, with a mix of live group sessions, small virtual gatherings, and videos and assignments to be completed solo. The technology support team will work with participants during the week of May 4 so everyone can join the classes smoothly and without any technology problems. 

CJP has hired instructional designer Sharon Tjaden-Glass to optimize the online experience. Classes will use a combination of platforms including Zoom for video conferences, Moodle for collating assignments, and VoiceThread, which allows students watching an online lecture or other media to pause, leave a video comment, and interact with one another’s videos.

The social component of SPI is vital to the program, Docherty said, like “all the conversations over coffee hour, or in the residence halls late at night, or in the dining hall.” One way they intend to foster this is through virtual group dances hosted by Katie Mansfield, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience trainer.

While retooling an experiential learning program with international attendees in just a matter of weeks has taken a lot of work, “this pushed us to live up to our values,” said Bill Goldberg, director of SPI. Cancelling was not an option.

“The reality is the world needs this, especially now. The world’s going to be changed after this pandemic. We all know that,” Goldberg said. “How do we deal with those who are traumatized? How do we deal with justice issues differently?”

For more information and to apply to the Summer Peacebuilding Institute Online 2020, click here. Course offerings are listed below.

For Professional development or academic credit

• Transforming Community Spaces through Equitable Collaboration
• Digital Peacebuilding and Peace Tech: Understanding Media, Conflict, and Online Violent Extremism
• Circle Processes

For professional development only

• Introduction to Restorative Justice
• Trauma, Resilience, and Healing in Times of the Pandemic
• Designing Processes for Conflict Transformation: Dialogue, Deliberation, and Decision-Making
• Conducting Organizational Assessments in Times of Conflict

For academic credit only

• Analysis: Understanding Conflict
• Formation for Peacebuilding Practice
• Transformational Leadership for Organizational Change
• Restorative Justice: Principles, Theories & Applications

A time capsule of ��ݮ����’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is in the works – not to be buried, but uploaded. The artifact in question is a podcast, which will feature ten CJP faculty and staff members reflecting on the history of CJP and their own peacebuilding work. The 10-episode series is set to launch on Wednesday Jan. 22, 2020, with a new episode dropping every other week on the Peacebuilder website.

The podcast is the creation of Patience Kamau, a 2017 graduate of the program and also chair of CJP’s 25th anniversary committee, who wanted to give students, alumni, friends and supporters of the graduate program an in-depth look at where CJP has been, where it is now, and where it hopes to go.

“For the sake of posterity, this is emerging as a gem,” Kamau said. “These voices are here right now, many of them were here 25 years ago, and given the simple trajectory of life, are unlikely to be here 25 years from now.”

But why a podcast, specifically?

“It’s a way that a lot of people are consuming information these days. I think it’s a necessary long-form method of connecting with the audience,” Kamau explained, in contrast to the “fragmented” nature of social media posts. “When you’re doing it on podcasts, you can go into more depth, and you can connect with an audience in a different, more meaningful way.”

While the exact episode order is yet to be determined, Kamau said the pilot will feature Barry Hart. His interview acts as a primer to CJP, touching on elements like the Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series and curriculum design, which other interviewees then dive into more deeply. “It’s like passing on a baton,” Kamau said. 

She asked each interviewee the same questions, based on the 25th anniversary’s theme of “celebrate, reflect, dream,” but of course “each one of them goes down a very unique path based on their own careers and life experiences.”

Kamau is an avid podcast consumer – she subscribes to at least eight, and regularly listens to others beyond those. That gave her an ear for what makes for a good listening experience, as she went into the project having to teach herself about audio production by looking up internet guides and tutorials.

Alumni Michaela Mast ‘18 and ‘19 have also helped breathe life into the podcast. Mast, co-host of the climate justice podcast , which is sponsored by the housed at EMU, has lent technical assistance. Mullet, whose scores have been featured in recent documentaries and video games, is composing original music for the episodes.The podcast’s audio mixing engineer is Steve Angello who works closely with Mullet.  

“There’s something organic about it, just doing the work in anticipation of what will emerge. It’s a work of art, where the overall beauty lies in paying attention to the details” Kamau said.

The episodes will be also available on Apple Podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, and TuneIn.

Featured voices

Each episode presents an interview with the following CJP affiliates, listed alphabetically by last name as the exact episode order is yet to be determined.

• David Brubaker, dean of EMU’s School of Social Sciences and Professions and longtime CJP professor,
• Jayne Docherty, executive director,
• Bill Goldberg, director of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute,
• Barry Hart, professor of trauma, identity and conflict studies,
• Katie Mansfield, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program lead trainer,
• Janelle Myers-Benner, academic program coordinator,
• Gloria Rhodes, professor of peacebuilding and conflict studies,
• Carl Stauffer, professor of restorative and transitional justice and co-director of the ,
• Johonna Turner, professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding and co-director of the , and
• Howard Zehr, distinguished professor of restorative justice.

“We don’t need to be lawyers, prosecutors, judges or social workers here,” he said. “We just need to be humans and talk about our experience, to change the world and make peace.”

Maia helped organize the group of 54, the largest of any one nationality to attend SPI at one time. It included people who are judges, RJ promoters, officials of the judiciary, lawyers, university professors and municipal guards. Dozens more were on a waiting list.

Most participants this year took courses on Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) I and victim-offender conferencing.

The SPI courses, Maia said, provided tools that will broaden how RJ is used in Brazil, where current guidelines proposed by the national council of judges focus on the use of circle processes.

“Here at EMU, we are learning that RJ is not what the law says, but what the community and people feel about the justice,” he said. “It has given me a new lens, and prepared me and other people in the group to talk more about restorative justice, and be ready in our spirits to go back to Brazil and talk about how these theories and practices are important to the community and not only to judges, prosecutors and lawyers.”

Trauma-informed justice

RJ, which is grounded in repairing the harm of crime in processes that engage individuals and other community members, is well served by trauma training, said second-time SPI participant Mayara Carvalho. She has practiced RJ in the Brazil juvenile justice system, schools and university settings, and she earned her PhD researching restorative practices in communities. She is also laying the groundwork for an RJ center.

Carvalho incorporated STAR training she received at last year’s SPI into her work with a young boy in Brazil who had been convicted of murder and drug dealing, but who had also suffered poor health and bullying.

“When I put trauma and resilience together on the table, we could see him as a person,” she said – and “he started to think about himself as a person, not as a victim or as an offender.”

In addition to her book Justiça Restaurativa na Comunidade, about using RJ in communities, Carvalho has written a guide titled “Programa NÓS – Belo Horizonte” for using restorative practices in schools. Brazilian schools, she said, are often “a kind of door to criminalization” because of how they respond to students with problematic behavior.

“We’re trying to develop nonviolent communication, restorative practices and circle processes inside schools,” she said, “to work on conflicts in a better way.”

Changing the conversation

The SPI experience has shaped the Brazilian conversation about RJ, said Maia, and prompted the group to think about “what we’re doing in Brazil and what needs to be changed to do better, to expand this restorative understanding, and then to [bring] this powerful tool to the community for transformation.”

It’s not only about law, he said: It’s also about a social theory of justice.

“In Brazil we just see what the law says, and apply this in cases,” he said. “Now, we are starting to think, ‘Is this justice, to resolve the case only by law? Or justice is to give people the chance to heal their trauma?’”

Tentative plans are for another group of 25-50 to attend SPI next year, with the current group returning the following year to take STAR II and an RJ course that has a dual focus of RJ in education and RJ in the legal system, Goldberg said.

“My key learning at CJP is the importance of embodied learning in peacebuilding, which is new to peacebuilding education here but also in Korea,” she said.

This month, Ahn did just that – hosting a five-day course at EMU on “Building Resilience for Body, Mind and Spirit” for 18 visiting South Korean K-12 educators.

The “arts-based, embodied learning experience was developed to revitalize creativity for working in nonviolent social transformation,” said course creator Katie Mansfield, the lead trainer of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program.

Offered in past years at CJP’s , the course was tailored for this group by Ahn and Mansfield. Goals included an understanding of how systemic and cultural violence affects individual trauma, building resilience in body, mind, and spirit through arts-based, embodied learning, and empowerment for making social change, Ahn said.

“It was an honor that Eunkyung chose to bring her colleagues to CJP and EMU,” said Hannah Kelley, STAR program director. “CJP has been hosting a growing number of US and international groups for short-term trainings like this one. We learn from the people who attend our trainings: the problems in their work, their careful analysis of their context, and their creative and innovative approaches to RJ, trauma awareness and resilience. This group was no exception! These teachers are thoughtful and creative peace-builders, and we were excited to work together for a week.”

Working to transform South Korean educational systems

The educators are members of the Center for Restorative Justice in Education, an affiliate of the Movement for Good Teachers, a Christian teachers association in South Korea. The movement is “a grassroots effort by Christian teachers to transform Korean education with justice, peace and love,” Ahn said. Formed in 2011 in response to a rise in school bullying, the teacher-members are working to promote nonviolence and peace in the school environment.

Course participants Inki Hong, Eunji Park and Byeongjoo Lee are senior teachers at schools in urban neighborhoods near Seoul. Hong and Park teach elementary school in Sang-tan and Gwan-ak, respectively. Lee teaches middle and high school English in Sin-neung; he has also worked in reform schools and in China. All learned about circle processes and restorative justice in different ways, including teacher academies and international workshops, some involving Jae-Young Lee MA ‘03, founder of the Korea Peacebuilding Institute.

Before he learned about restorative justice, Hong says he played the role of a judge with his students.

“Before, when children fight, I would have to decide who is wrong and who is right,” he said. “Now, I don’t decide. I help you figure out what happened and how to make things right. The circle makes equal power and equal power is not usually found in classrooms.”

Children in Korea “do not know how to express themselves,” said Park. “In the circle, they know how. It really develops metacognitive skills.”

Lee, who teaches older children and teenagers, said with a smile that if he used the circle process in class, “my students might think I was crazy.”

“Apart from application,” he said more seriously, “I am learning how the philosophy of RJ can be shaped into many circle styles. The format and philosophy of RJ has emerged to me in a more concrete way, which I find very inspiring.”

All three educators work with newcomer teachers in their home settings and plan to share their learnings in hopes of contributing to culture and systemic change in the educational environment.

Visit to EMU fulfills ‘a dream’

The Center for Restorative Justice in Education has offered international learning opportunities in the past. With other center members, Ahn traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, five years ago. A visit to EMU has been “a dream” for the group, she said, and shortly after she arrived at CJP for graduate studies, she began working with CJP faculty and staff.

“I am most appreciative of the supportive efforts of CJP executive director Daryl Byler, Jayne Docherty, Bill Goldberg, Hannah Kelley and Katie Mansfield, who made it happen,” she said.

Docherty is CJP’s academic programs director. Goldberg directs the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, an annual program that offers similar short courses on a range of topics.��

Mansfield brings years of experience leading STAR trainings around the globe, many of which are specially adapted to meet specific needs of the hosting group.

The “Building Resilience” course invites learners “to exercise their creative muscle, a critical foundational practice for challenging violence,” she said. Participants engage in visual artistry, music making, movement exploration, poetry and short story development, and final presentations. A session with visiting co-facilitator Ram Bhagat involved drumming and contemplative practices.

Mansfield appreciated the group’s engagement: “I was so impressed at how deeply and directly the educators connected the various expressive arts exercises to the challenges they face as educators, restorative justice practitioners and citizens of Korea.”

Facets of their resilience were expressed, she said, through connections made to the ongoing civil rights journey in the US, “a moving percussion and movement performance about confronting and transcending violence,” and an arts-based lament of/transformative response to the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster, in which 299 people died, many of them high school students.

Spreading the word

After graduation in May 2018, Ahn will take STAR II. She looks forward to seeing what she has learned since taking STAR I at the beginning of her studies two years ago. Then she’ll take some months to travel and visit spirituality-based peacebuilding communities before returning to her teaching position in South Korea.

“I am so passionate about growing as an educator and helping to educate others about valuing our whole beings,” she said. “It is so important to live with our true selves in our individual and communal lives, and I hope to share that with my students and their parents and other educators in the future.”

Titled “Cultivating a Justice-Oriented Community,” the Feb. 15 event will include a morning plenary speaker, workshops, opportunities for networking, and a catered lunch presentation.

“This year’s emphasis on local efforts and locally adaptable tools will enhance the facilitation, leadership and organizational skills for working in any community,” said SPI director Bill Goldberg. “And the lunch from local sandwich shop Gray Jay Provisions will be delicious!”

The annual event is modeled after the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, which is held on campus every May and June. Since 1994, more than 3,200 people from 120 countries have attended SPI, gaining concrete strategies and practical skills for cultivating a world organized around principles of justice, equity and dignity, and rooted in right relationship with our planet and with one another. This summer’s four sessions will focus on topics such as the nature and dynamics of conflict and violence, truthtelling and racial healing, trustbuilding, circle processes, peacebuilding approaches to violent extremism, and more.

Included in the $50 Community Day registration cost ($25 for EMU faculty, staff and students) are a waiver code for the SPI application fee, a copy of a Little Book of Justice and Peacebuilding, lunch, morning coffee and pastries, and two 90-minute workshop sessions.

The morning plenary speaker will be associate professor of teacher education Kathy Evans, on the work of restorative justice in educational contexts.

“Children who learn about justice grow up to become adults who promote justice,” she said. “Children who learn to resolve conflict in their classrooms become adults who know how to resolve conflict and promote peace in our world.”

The lunchtime presentation, titled “Rewilding Justice: On Sourdough and Transcending Incarceration,” will feature Soula Pefkaros of Gray Jay Provisions, a Harrisonburg sandwich shop and market. Pefkaros earned a master’s degree in conflict transformation with a restorative justice concentration at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and is completing her doctoral degree in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Workshop options and presenters include:

• “Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience,” presented by Joy Kreider, a curriculum writer for InnerCHANGE: An order of Christians among the poor;
• “Circle Processes in Schools: An Interactive Introduction to the Why and How,” presented by Kathy Evans;
• “Transformational Leadership for Organizational Change,” presented by Dave Brubaker, director of the MBA and masters of organizational leadership programs and an associate professor of organizational studies at EMU;
• “Local Responses to Violent Extremism,” presented by Lisa Schirch, North American research director for the Toda Institute and an advisor with the Alliance for Peacebuilding; and
• “Trustbuilding in Organizations and Communities,” presented by Barry Hart, professor of trauma, identity and conflict studies at EMU.

For more information or to register, visit the Community Day website.

In those 20 years, one family member, Bshara Nassar, attended and graduated from the . (Bshara, married to Kiersten Rossetto Nassar ‘13, ��is a founder of ��in Washington D.C.)

But his uncle, Daoud Nassar, who directs farm operations and is the lead spokesperson for Tent of Nations, had never visited EMU.

That changed the first week of November when Nassar spent two days on campus, participating in several interactions: a seminary chapel sermon, a lunch discussion with present and future Middle East cross-cultural participants, a classroom discussion with students at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and an evening forum and discussion open to the community. Nassar’s time on campus concluded with a student-led tour of EMU’s sustainability efforts, a request he specifically made to gain more ideas for his own family farm in Palestine.

Among many familiar faces on campus to greet Nassar was Timothy Seidel, director of EMU’s Center for Interfaith Engagement (CIE) and assistant professor of international development. While living in Bethlehem and working for Mennonite Central Committee from 2004-07, Seidel visited the farm on a number of occasions and saw the family regularly at Christmas Lutheran Church. More recently, he into nonviolence and civil resistance in Palestine. ��

Nassar’s visit was sponsored by CIE, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. ��

‘Who Is My Neighbor?’

Emeritus Professor Dorothy Jean Weaver introduced Nassar to the seminary audience, delighted to finally be able to reciprocate the hospitality and love the family had shown to her and her students over more than 10 visits to Palestine since the 1990s.

“Their ongoing friendship has blessed my life,” Weaver said. “And like me, I would venture that many of our seminary students who have visited Tent of Nations would say their experience was uplifting and inspiring, seeing how the Nassar family has endured their situation with a deeply hopeful approach to life and so guided by Christian principles.’”

The Nassar family lives on land that they have owned for generations, yet nevertheless has been in continuous litigation with the Israeli government since 1991. Their choice of family motto��— “We refuse to be enemies” — was deeply intentional and has strong links to the scripture text about the Good Samaritan, he explained during the seminary chapel service. ��

“The good Samaritan did not raise the question what would happen to me if I stop? He asked what would happen to that man if I don’t stop?,” Nassar said. “This is the true meaning of love which is action, to see and act in a different way … Acting differently, that is what Jesus meant by loving your neighbor. When you act in a different way, you open a new perspective for someone else to see the other differently.”

Acting with violence toward their oppressors would not change their situation, Nassar said, recounting the family discussions that led to the eventual establishment of Tent of Nations. “We decided there must be another way of resistance, to resist with love, because we believe that hatred creates more hatred, darkness more darkness.”

Spiritual experiences and more

Bill Goldberg, director of CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, spent a memorable week at Tent of Nations while co-leading the fall 2017 cross-cultural with his wife Lisa Schirch, son Levi and daughter Miranda.

The days were simple, rich and full, he remembered, with hours of labor helping with the olive harvest followed by meals and fellowship around a fire at night. While the nights were dark, peaceful and still, the hum of construction and the sight of electricity in nearby Israeli settlements, as well as the main road blockade set by Israeli soldiers, was a constant threatening reminder of the situation in Palestine. ��

Reconnecting with Nassar on campus brought back strong recollections for Goldberg of the site of his “most profound spiritual experience.” Palestinian guide Alaa Hamdan MA ‘08 (the group also had an Israeli guide) had said that the Muslim call to prayer is “constant, circling the globe continuously, starting a few seconds to a few minutes later in each village as the earth rotates.

On a hilltop at Tent of Nations one evening, Goldberg says he thought the call was merely echoing off the hills. “But then, in succession, it stopped in each village. ��I was actually hearing the call to prayer travel around the world. It was beautiful and uplifts my heart now just to think about it.”

At the reunion, students shared reflections of their own experiences at the farm. “Daoud talked about the land and updated us on the complex legal situation,” Goldberg said. “While we were there, the family was rushing to refile paperwork to keep their land ownership case in the Israeli court system, a cycle that has sadly become as much a part of their calendar as the olive and fruit harvests. So that was something we wanted to know about.”

“He also talked about volunteers helping at the farm,” Goldberg added, “and of course, tried to recruit a few to come back.”

Future Middle East travel

• EMU’s connection to the Middle East expanded last year with the first Alumni and Friends Cross-Cultural to the Middle East with longtime and much beloved leaders Linford and Janet Stutzman.��Read more here.
• Check out the Alumni and Friends Cross Cultural webpage for more information on other travels, including the next Middle East trip with the Stutzmans in fall 2019.
• Seminary professors Dorothy Jean Weaver and Kevin Clark co-lead a Middle East cross-cultural for seminary students in summer 2019.
• The next Middle East cross cultural for EMU undergraduate students travels with the Stutzmans in spring 2019.

“We’re a small meeting so we’ve decided that financial support of peacebuilders is a way to live out our values,” said member Lois Carter Crawford.

Over the years, that support has contributed to training for Quakers working with the , an initiative of the Friends Peace Team. This year, with no international SPI participants signaling Quaker affiliation on their SPI application, the committee shifted their focus.

“Because there’s been so much violence in the US, we looked for someone locally who was working on reduction of gun violence and peacemaking,” Crawford said.

That recipient was Zanetta Ford-Byrd, executive director of the Harrisonburg Education Foundation and a sociology professor at James Madison University. The foundation funds educational opportunities through its Innovative Educator Grants, celebrates professional excellence through its Teacher of the Year awards, and helps to galvanize the community to support Harrisonburg City Public Schools.

By paying tuition of a local recipient, the fund also had money remaining to award a partial scholarship to Mohammed Ishaq Israr, of Pakistan. He works with Penny Appeal, an organization that provides foster care for orphaned children and homes for widows and homeless men.

Israr has attended SPI four times, once as a Winston Fellow and last year with the support of Valley Friends. Each time he has stayed with the Crawfords in their home.

By the end of June, more than 180 people from 35 countries will have taken at least one of SPI’s 19 training courses.

Here’s a list of other scholarships and the peacebuilders who benefited from their support.

Winston Fellowship

Esther Paya, of Nigeria, is the 2018 Winston Fellow. She took the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) II training, as well as courses in formation for peace practice and truth-telling, racial healing and restorative justice.

The fellowship is focused on providing new skills and training to emergent international or indigenous peacebuilders. Paya has been involved in the field since 2014. To help others build resilience and heal, as she had to do, Paya first began volunteering to help traumatized victims of violence and to facilitate around forgiveness and reconciliation. In 2015, she began working with the Dialogue, Reconciliation and Peace Centre and the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria on a Mennonite Central Committee-funded peace project in the northeast.

The Winston Fellowship requires that both the applicant and the organization seeking the training both present an application. The application must explain how the two entities will partner together to provide a six-week internship when the peacebuilder returns from SPI.

When Paya returns to Nigeria after SPI, she will fulfill scholarship requirements by rejoining the center to work in an European Union-funded project that aims to promote respect for diversity among community members by engagement in intercultural and interreligious activities.

Read more about the past and present Winston Fellows, and how the scholarship began.

Alper Family Scholarship: Paul Ruot Bayoch

Paul Ruot Bayoch, a master trainer with AECOM International in South Sudan, was awarded the Alper Family Scholarship, which supports one African or Asian peacebuilder with tuition and lodging for two SPI sessions. Bayoch facilitates the trauma awareness program, which uses STAR curriculum. He took courses in restorative justice, conflict analysis and truthtelling and reconciliation.

Stoltzfus Scholarship: Maji Ndasule PeterX and Alexia Stouraiti

The Stoltzfus Scholarship awards training fees and lodging for two sessions to one international participant working to bridge global barriers of language and culture.

Recipients were Maji Ndasule PeterX, who took courses in restorative justice and truthtelling and reconciliation, and Alexia Stouraiti, who took a circle process course and Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) training.

Ndasule, from Nigeria, is a trainer and coordinator with Carefronting in Nigeria. He is lead facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) and the��trauma consciousness and resilience program and has offered trainings around the world on a variety of peace-related topics. He also works in facilitation, program content development, training manual design, trauma therapy and monitoring and evaluation.

In 2017, his wife Tessy Gusim-Ndasule, who works in interreligious dialogue, was a Winston Fellow at SPI.

Stouraiti, from Athens, Greece, is a lawyer, accredited mediator, restorative circles keeper and�� psychodramatist. IN 2017, she helped to facilitate circles in Greece for the program, which used the restorative approach to host talking circles in nine cities across five countries (Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Greece and Italy). The topic was�� to create dialogue around the topic of euro-skepticism.

Coming to the Table members supported in racial healing work

“provides leadership, resources and a supportive environment for all who wish to acknowledge and heal wounds from racism that is rooted in the United States’ history of slavery,” according to their website. The organization, which began at EMU and still has affiliate ties, uses conceptual frameworks rooted in trauma awareness and resilience and restorative justice. Their 12th��Annual National Gathering was June 14-17 at EMU.

With growing national attention on the need for racial healing, the organization has groups in seven states and Washington D.C., including a multi-state Mid-Atlantic group.

The organization has offered donor- and grant-funded scholarships to its members to attend SPI for the past five years.

This year’s recipients include Cheryl Goode, Sarah Kohrs, Sharon Morgan, Crixell Shell and James Tyler Jr. They each took one course, ranging from circle processes and truthtelling to restorative justice and STAR training.

In a corner of his office, he keeps a collection of baseball bats, one for each case he has won in court.

A partner in the Washington D.C.-based firm Wilkenfeld, Herendeen & Atkinson, he currently has two high-profile cases, as representation for the first woman to accuse former NBC news anchor Matt Lauer of sexual misconduct, and also the accuser of NBC news journalist Tom Brokaw.

While he finds victim legal advocacy challenging and fulfilling, he says, a recent visit to speak at ��ݮ����’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute created an “eye-opening,” self-reflective awareness.

That “unique experience” exposed “the world that I live in,” which stigmatizes the possibilities, process and potential of collaborative conflict resolution, he said in a phone interview a few days later. “I’ve studied truth and reconciliation as it was conducted in South Africa, and taught negotiation and diplomacy in college and law school, but I have never had the opportunity to have my manner of doing my job challenged by a group of people who have different ideas about conflict resolution, and not just different ideas but carefully studied and well-thought-out ideas.”

��

An ‘eye-opening’ context

Many SPI participants – and not just those attending this year’s first-time course offering on sexual harms – bring a nuanced understanding of issues related to gender-related violence, says Bill Goldberg, SPI director.

Many peacebuilders at SPI, women and men alike, work to further the goals of , known as UNCR 1325. It codified the importance of women’s participation at all stages of peace processes and called for increased measures to reduce gender-based violence during armed conflict.

“Increased gender-based violence and inequalities are common symptoms of fragile states, which is why global attention is much more attuned to this issue,” Goldberg said. “The United States delayed development of its required action plan related to UNCR 1325 for 11 years, which says something about how little our political leadership cares about this issue. The grass-roots efforts of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements reflects on issues of global importance.”

As Wilkenfeld said during his visit, “we live in a country that about every 50 years for 3.5 weeks cares about what women need.”

Beyond the ‘baseline’

Wilkenfeld was a guest in a course titled “Sexual Harms: Changing the Narrative.” Course creator and facilitator Dr. Carolyn Stauffer brings her own expertise from 30 years working on issues of gender-based violence in South Africa, the Middle East and the United States.

While noting the importance of compliance with legal standards, Wilkenfeld challenged participants to reach beyond this baseline towards aspirational goals, Stauffer said.

“He pointed out that most legal standards are more than 50 years old and we should be rigorously notching up minimum requirements,” she said. “Course participants suggested that this should be the case in terms of how we define what constitutes sexual harms, how organizations practice truth-telling and public apology, as well as in understanding differential impacts across various communities.”

Stauffer said she was “impressed with the depth and nuance of the dialogue, a conversation that would not have gained this level of visibility, even five years ago.”

Both challenged and challenging

Wilkenfeld then addressed all SPI participants and other guests as the featured speaker during a Horizons of Change luncheon. He summarized his work and offered remarks on the #MeToo movement for about 15 minutes before opening the floor for questions and discussion.

In a workplace environment with a pervasive culture of sexual harassment, he said, systemic change can begin with the individual through acknowledgement of male privilege, calling out inappropriate behavior, entering into honest conversations and taking responsibility for one’s actions. [Read his urging men “to face the mirror.”]

In response to audience questions, Wilkenfeld engaged with several subtopics, including the scarcity of terms used to describe a diverse types of harassment and misbehavior, the role and efficacy of an apology, the usefulness of transparent, open and genuine dialogue among colleagues, and power dynamics in the workplace.

On at least two occasions, his word choice was respectfully challenged by listeners.

“This was unique to me in that people had no problem letting the speaker know they didn’t like what was said or the way it was said,” he said later. “I speak in front of a lot of audiences who when I say something they don’t like, there’s just a negative facial expression and no engagement. I want to speak in front of audiences that challenge me, then give me an opportunity to think about what I said.”

Within that unique space, Wilkenfeld did something he said he’d never done before: ask an audience member.

“This is something I’m struggling with … so let me ask you, ‘How do we do restorative justice with a person who does not want to admit guilt and in fact is outrageously angry to be accused in the first place?” he questioned.

Still, Wilkenfeld wonders at the willingness of his opponents, who have often built their corporate success on the wielding of outsized strength and power, to be part of a less combative, more healing conflict resolution process.

Given the opportunity in a settlement to pay $500,000 and offer an apology or pay $1 million, Wilkenfeld says,“they choose $1 million every time.”

“I’ve never met a harasser who wanted to apologize for what he did or allegedly did,” he said.

Later, Wilkenfeld said that he’s been mulling over the different perspectives he heard.

“It seems reasonable that it would be better if, instead of beating each other up in court, we could all sit down and talk things out, figure out how much harm is done and do so in a way that is designed in a way to heal everybody, even the alleged perpetrator,” he said. “People in my profession should all be thinking about that possibility. But our culture doesn’t value that kind of resourceful thinking about conflict resolution. Our culture values wins and losses.”

More about legal professionals who have explored restorative practices

• Attorney Tammy Krause MA ‘99 talks about her groundbreaking victim-outreach collaboration with an defense attorney representing Timothy McVeigh.
• Attorney Brenda Waugh MA ‘09 .
• The spring/summer 2011 issue of Peacebuilder magazine highlights alumni working in restorative justice in various contexts.

Seven new courses this year are added to SPI’s core offerings. Since 1994, more than 3,200 people from 120 countries have attended the summer program, gaining concrete strategies and practical skills.

“We live in an era fraught with injustice and conflict,” said SPI director . “Knowing how to proactively respond can open avenues of transformation.”

“Peacebuilding takes work,” he added. “And to do work well, you need the right tools – sometimes revisioning of the same tools, and sometimes brand new ones.”

During its four sessions in May and June, academically credentialed practitioners teach five- and seven-day courses that can be taken for personal skills growth and training or academic credit. Participants also share wisdom and knowledge and meals with each other and take time for rest, reflection and renewal.

This year, SPI will offer an array of new courses: topics include the prison-industrial complex, changing the narrative of sexual harms, human-centered design, visual communication and nonviolence, and more.

A fifth session of three-day workshops is being offered to give those unable to spend an entire week or more an opportunity to gain skills and knowledge. Workshops being considered for this special three-day workshop series include topics such as theater for activists, integration of conflict systems, the role of crime victims and survivors in restorative justice, and a training for facilitators who help children respond effectively to violence and abuse. More information will be available in the coming weeks on the SPI website and facebook page or by contacting the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at spi@emu.edu.

include CJP faculty as well as a variety of global practitioners with extensive peacebuilding experience and insight. Some of them are:

• (co-teaching “STAR Level 1” with neuropsychologist Dr. ) is an educator, arts innovator, and peacemaker. He is an international conflict resolution trainer for the Richmond Peace Education Center; the visionary behind the Richmond Youth Peace Project; board president for theater arts-based group The Conciliation Project; and co-founder of Drums No Guns.
• (“Peace Education”) is an educator, author, contemplative practitioner, and martial artist. He has lived and/or worked as an educator in various k-12, university, and community contexts in multiple countries: United States, India, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Cyprus, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, and more.
• (“Modern Slavery and the Prison-Industrial Complex”) is a professor of political science at the University of Richmond, a co-developer of the Global Slavery Index and a consultant and researcher on human trafficking.
• (“Truth-telling, Racial Healing and Restorative Justice”) is the co-founder and executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. Since 2003 she has been engaged in a search for healing alternatives to adversarial justice. She has taught restorative justice at San Francisco’s New College Law School.
• (“Peace Through Pictures: Visual Communication and Nonviolence”) is an artist and scholar who has published on subjects including histories of technology and society and perception of bias in algorithmic systems. His book Lookout America!, a critical history of nuclear test films, will be out this fall.

SPI has spawned a number of initiatives around the world from Canada to Ghana to India to Fiji to South Korea and beyond.

The invitation was issued after a group of senators used a talking stick to help negotiate an end to the recent government shutdown. It was extended via an email from , the center’s executive director, on Tuesday – which will be followed by a mailed letter – to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and to House of Representatives Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).��

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was also invited, as was Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), who initially introduced the talking piece to her fellow senators.

“The senators’ use of the talking stick demonstrates that it can be an effective practice,” said SPI director . “Ultimately, it would benefit our nation to have all members of Congress engage in circle processes.”

The , taught at SPI by internationally renowned circles practitioner , is offered May 24-June 1, 2018. Twenty other courses are also taught, including several related to collaborative communication practices involving facilitation, truth-telling and restorative justice.

Since 1994, SPI has hosted more than 3,200 people from 120 countries.

During the government shutdown, Collins – reportedly tired of members of the Common Sense Coalition talking over each other – initiated the use of a in negotiations. The discussion reportedly was not without mishap, when the resulted in slight damage to a glass elephant in Collins’ office. After the incident, the group switched to using a small rubber ball.

“How to have healthy discussions – to listen respectfully and wait your turn to speak – is exactly part of what we teach in our circle processes classes,” said Bill Goldberg. “But we don’t have any glass elephants.”

Representing more than 50 years of leadership were Myron Augsburger and wife Esther, Joe Lapp and wife Hannah, Loren Swartzendruber and wife Pat, and former interim president and provost Beryl Brubaker and husband Mark.

Louise Hostetter, chair of the Centennial Committee, offered a prayer for the coming year, in part recalling the founders of the university and the many generations of educational leaders who have contributed to EMU’s legacy: “We are thankful for all who have gone before us, and have for the past 100 years, helped build the foundations of academic excellence, made holy by years of faithful discipleship. We are grateful for those who have made it possible for us to be here today, through prayer, encouragement, and mentoring. May we also embody the values of the servants and leaders who have walked this campus before us and with us. May we never forget them.”

Centennial history may have been foremost in many minds, but student body co-presidents Caleb Schrock-Hurst and��Adam Harnish gave a special nod to their fellow students.

“For 100 years, students have been coming here, but you are the first ones to arrive at this time in this place,” Schrock-Hurst said. “Before we’re swamped by homework, before practices become games, before we don’t have the time to think about why we’re here, let’s take a moment to reflect. We are here to embody Jesus’ spirit in the world, and that is a task that should not be forgotten no matter how fun any weekend may be. We have a difficult task, but it is one we can take on with joy, and we are excited to do that with you all.”

In his welcome, Provost Fred Kniss acknowledged the recent events in Charlottesville and asserted the university’s imperative role as a place where even in debate and conflict, “every person is treated with dignity and respect.”

“EMU is a place where each of us brings our own personal history and perspective to bear on the most confounding questions of the day,” he said. “But as a university, we offer an alternative to the anger and violence that seem to mar so much of our society’s public conversation these days.”

As she’s been in office since January and was inaugurated in April, this was Huxman’s first opportunity to welcome a new class of first-year students to EMU — the first group of students who will spend all four of their years on campus in EMU’s second century.

She offered two parallel narratives, the first based on the popular children’s book The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, about a little boy with great faith that his carrot seed would sprout.

A second narrative highlighted the “radical roots” of EMU’s founders, who believed in the institution and persevered, despite great odds, in its founding and eventual flourishing. From seven students, five faculty, and three subjects of study in 1917, the university has expanded to nearly 1,800 students in undergraduate and graduate programs,148 faculty, 40 majors, and two additional instructional sites in Lancaster and Washington D.C.

After the final hymn, students traveling on cross-cultural during the semester were invited to the front for a prayer and blessing, as happens during each fall and spring convocation. This time, it was the Middle East cross-cultural group, led by Bill Goldberg and Lisa Schirch, which leaves tomorrow — the 25th semester program to the region .

Interim cross-cultural program director Ann Hershberger said that these students were about “to go on a physical journey, a spiritual journey, an intellectual journey, and an emotional journey. They go representing us.”