PARKING ALERT: Parking on campus will be extremely limited this night due to a local public high school graduation ceremony in the University Commons. Please find a spot in any lot on campus (you will not be ticketed for illegal parking). We trust your walk to the building will be well worth the effort!

The play, starring Ted Swartz and Tim Ruebke, allows audiences to laugh at themselves while raising important questions about the place of the U.S. in the world, confronting the fear that is such a large part of contemporary culture and exploring ways to honestly work for peace and justice in this country 鈥� and just maybe in the larger world!

Sketches include: “I’d Like to Buy an Enemy,” “Why Can’t I Get My Money Back?”, 鈥淭he Reptilian Brain Speaks: We鈥檙e late! We鈥檙e late 鈥� are we late?” and 鈥淵ou Started it! 鈥� a treatise on the cycles of violence.鈥�

Tim Ruebke will lead a discussion following the play.

Ted Swartz is a writer and actor who has been mucking around in the worlds of the sacred and profane for over 20 years. He is the creator or co-creator of over a dozen plays, including “FishEyes,” “Creation Chronicles,” “DoveTale,” “What Would Lloyd Do?” with Trent Wagler, “Tattered and Worn” and” Just Give 鈥楨m the News” with Jeff Raught, “I鈥檇 Like to Buy an Enemy,” “Excellent Trouble” with Ingrid de Sanctis, “Live at Jacob鈥檚 Ladder” and others. Ted is a theologian of a different sort. Both theater and seminary trained, he has found a unique, and entertaining, discovery: at the intersection of humor and biblical story is often a greater understanding of the text. Or, at the very least, a different understanding.

Tim Ruebke is executive director of the Fairfield Center in Harrisonburg. Since 1992, he has extensive experience mediating and facilitating general community, family, workplace, group/multi-party, and criminal circumstances. He is certified by the Supreme Court of Virginia as a mentor mediator and trainer and has been an adjunct faculty member for James Madison University and EMU. He earned a BA degree in social work and an MA degree in conflict transformation from EMU.

Admission is $10at the door.聽 For more information, contact the SPI office at 540-432-4653.

For more information on Ted & Company, contact: agent@tedandcompany.com or call 540-421-1716.

A coalition of organizations working in criminal justice, conflict mediation and related fields has cited an 草莓社区 professor for his many years of involvement in this arena.

, professor of restorative justice and co-director of the (CJP) at EMU, received the first annual award, named in his honor, from the Restorative Justice Association of Virginia.

The organization gave Dr. Zehr the award following his plenary address at a conference the group held recently in Charlottesville.

“It was a complete surprise,” Zehr said. “I felt particularly honored to be recognized by this group because I feel like more of my time in this field has been spent working in other parts of the country and the world.”

Zehr is considered one of the founders of the restorative justice field. While restorative justice concepts extend to addressing issues ranging from wrongdoing in church and mediating conflict in schools, Zehr has worked especially with criminal justice issues.

In this area, restorative justice focuses on addressing victim needs, holding offenders accountable for harm done and involving people in the process of resolution. Often this includes an opportunity for victims and offenders to meet to discuss the harm and the resulting needs and to develop plans for restitution and other needs the victim and/or community may have.

The Restorative Justice Association of Virginia, formed in 2003, is made up of more than a dozen organizations across the state that use restorative justice principles in their work with crime victims and offenders. The Community Mediation Center, based in Harrisonburg, launched the first such effort in the early 1980s.

Zehr is scheduled to present the restorative justice model to the Alternative Dispute Resolution Subcommittee of the Futures Commission Task Force on Judical Administration in Richmond on Dec. 28.

Zehr joined the EMU faculty in 1996 after serving 18 years with Mennonite Central Committee’s Office on Crime and Justice. He has written numerous books, including “The Little Book of Restorative Justice” (Good Books) and the foundational work on the subject, “Changing Lenses” (1990), published by Herald Press.