Patience Kamau ’02, MA ’17 (conflict transformation), stands outside the post office in Nyahururu, central Kenya, and holds a letter. Its mailing address is written to her in blue ink, while the return address lists an “草莓社区” in Harrisonburg, Virginia, of the United States. The high school senior tears open the envelope and starts reading. The letter inside tells her that 50% of her tuition costs at EMU will be covered through the university’s International Grant.

Though that moment occurred nearly three decades ago, Kamau remembers it like it was yesterday. “That was among the greatest blessings I ever received,” she said, looking back.

She didn’t know much about the U.S. at the time, and even less about EMU, but her decision to cross an ocean and enroll at the university would forever shape her future. “It was very clear it was shifting the trajectory of my life,” she said.

Soon after receiving that first letter, she received another from EMU with an invitation. “Bring an open heart,” Kamau recalled reading, “because here you will make friendships and relationships that you will maintain for the rest of your life.”

“And that was true,” she said. “Many of the relationships I formed at EMU remain meaningful in my life.”

She admitted that she didn’t choose EMU; her father chose it for her. He had heard through family friends about “a little college in Harrisonburg” with a strong pre-med program. “He started looking into it, reading and studying it, and he liked it,” Kamau said.?

She arrived as a pre-med major in the fall of 1998. Her parents were physicians, and they encouraged her to follow in their footsteps. Kamau enjoyed biology classes during her first year at EMU, but once she started taking organic chemistry her sophomore year, she realized it was not for her. She quickly switched majors to computer information systems.

She became close with the handful of other international students on campus and got involved with the university’s multicultural and international programs, where she came under the wing of Delores “Delo” Blough ’80, former director of international student and scholar services. “Delo was a huge part of making all of us feel at home,” she said.

After graduating in 2002, Kamau worked in a variety of campus departments, including the alumni and parent relations office, the seminary, and the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness. She eventually landed a position at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, serving as assistant to the executive director while a student at CJP. As a perk of her job, she said, she could take eight credit hours a year at no charge.

Six years ago, as chair of CJP’s 25th anniversary committee, she began producing a series of Peacebuilder podcast episodes featuring the program’s faculty and staff to capture CJP’s oral history. According to an EMU News article from 2022, the podcast had logged more than 11,500 listeners in 119 countries and territories around the globe.

Since 2022, Kamau has served as program director for . The online course and connection platform offers activists, innovators, and others seeking knowledge and tools a space to “manifest solutions for people and planet,” according to its website.

Kamau said she categorizes her life as “100% lucky.” Half of that luck comes from the random happenstances she had nothing to do with. The other 50% is the kind of serendipitous luck when “preparation meets opportunity,” she said, borrowing a favorite phrase from Oprah.

“You try and live a certain way and prepare, and then when the opportunity arises, you hopefully take advantage of it,” she said. “I couldn’t have been more grateful to have ended up at EMU as a young adult who didn’t fully know who I was or what I wanted from life.”

Your support helps students pursue a quality college education without financial barriers. Join us for the 10th annual LovEMU Giving Day and contribute to the scholarships that empower future EMU students. On April 1, let’s show that our generosity knows no bounds…for the record!

Born and raised in the Mennonite church, Rhodes grew up believing she was called to be a peacemaker. But that early understanding of peace, she admits, made her avoid conflict rather than engage in it.

Then, two students, burly Russian men seated near the back of the classroom, began arguing. 

Within moments, the tension shifted. Chairs scraped. Voices sharpened. The exchange turned physical. And Rhodes realized something that would change the course of her life.

“I could talk about peace, but I didn’t actually know how to respond when presented with conflict,” she said. “When I returned to the United States, I knew I needed to learn how to handle conflict.”

She scuttled her previous plans to pursue a graduate degree in English and instead studied conflict analysis and resolution at George Mason University, earning both a master’s degree and a PhD. While at graduate school, she was hired by Professor Emeritus Dr. Vernon Jantzi ’64 to help coordinate the newly launched Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at EMU.?

For 34 years, Rhodes has taught at EMU, primarily in its world-renowned Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP). Today, she serves as academic director of CJP and professor of peacebuilding and conflict studies. She also teaches courses in conflict transformation and peacebuilding for the undergraduate program and the master of nursing program.?

Rhodes has led semester and summer intercultural programs in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, South Korea, and the Navajo Nation. She has served as department chair of EMU’s Applied Social Science Department, administrative director of SPI, and as a program assistant for the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution.

With SPI turning 30 this year, we sat down with the long-tenured professor to talk about the values-based education offered at CJP and how students are bringing more peace and justice to the world.

The following responses are from an interview that Rhodes conducted with photographer and videographer Macson McGuigan ’17. A video from their interview will publish later this spring. These responses were edited for conciseness.

What’s unique about CJP?

Many other programs teach basic communication or mediation skills, but what we add at EMU goes deeper. Our focus is on who you are and what you bring. Beyond the technical skills of conflict transformation, students engage in deep reflection and introspection around questions of:

• Who am I?
• What are my values and identities?
• What do I uniquely contribute to this work?
• And where do I fit in creating a more just and peaceful world?

We challenge students to connect their personal growth with leadership. They consider how to bring these skills and values into the places where they already work and lead. That combination of skill and self-assessment is the value we offer.

What can CJP grads do with their degrees?

There are generally three directions our students take. About a third go into direct practice, often working with nonprofit or non-governmental organizations anywhere in the world. These roles can include mediation centers, community outreach, or other supporting positions where they apply skills like facilitating discussions and bringing together diverse groups to meet community needs.

Another third pursue further education. Many go on to doctoral programs to study conflict more deeply, contribute to policy, or prepare to teach in this relatively new field. 

The final third continue in their current careers in positions ranging from ministry, health care, business, and government. They’re drawn to CJP because they want to improve how people work together, make decisions, and solve complex problems.

Why should people study at CJP?

We are truly about creating a learning community together. This isn’t a place where you come to be filled up with knowledge. You come because you want to explore your part in making the world more peaceful, and together, we figure out how to bring more peace and justice to the world.?

We can’t do it alone, and no single set of skills fits every situation. That’s why our approach is based on mutuality and learning, where everyone’s experiences and knowledge matter. Students contribute what they know, and at the same time, gain practical skills they can use in their own contexts.

Our focus is on practice, not just theory or research. We care about what people can do to make the world more peaceful and just. CJP is a place to learn, share, and build that future together.

What kinds of hands-on experience is offered at CJP?

Our curriculum is intentionally designed to include hands-on practice in the community. For example, in the facilitation course, our graduate students are contracted by local groups and organizations to help facilitate meetings or support decision-making processes. While students are learning and practicing new skills, the organizations also benefit from their work.

At the end of the master’s program, students can choose a traditional thesis, but most complete a practicum. These opportunities are diverse, ranging from restorative justice and trauma healing to mediation, facilitation, and training. Alumni often connect current students with new practice opportunities, ensuring a rich network of real-world engagement.

What is the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI)?

Part of how we support our students is by offering courses in the summer, not as traditional summer school, but as a training institute. These courses and trainings, held in May and June, allow anyone to explore topics related to conflict, restorative justice, and other areas of practice. Courses generally last five to seven days, and multiple courses run simultaneously over the two-month period. 

SPI is intentionally designed as a learning community. Students live in dorms, attend classes and lectures, and learn from one another, all while experiencing what it means to live together in a diverse community. It’s both a retreat and a training space. As one alum described, SPI is like a well where people can take a drink of water. It’s not going to feed them forever, but it’s nourishment they can take back into their work and communities.

LOS ANGELES VISIONARY ARTIST AND FUTURIST FABRICE GUERRIER MA ’15 (CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION) has been selected by 草莓社区’s Alumni Association and its Awards and Nomination Committee as the 2025 Alum of the Year for his work as founder and CEO of (pronounced Syll-a-ble), the first collaborative worldbuilding production house for science fiction and fantasy storytelling.?

“Being selected for this award feels quite unbelievable and affirms my work around collaborative worldbuilding,” said Guerrier, who defines worldbuilding on his website () as “the creation of intricate, plausible fictional universes often found in sci-fi, fantasy, and video games.”?

In collaborative worldbuilding, underrepresented creators from diverse cultures come together to imagine and publish their shared stories. 

A refuge of books

Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Guerrier immigrated with his family to Coral Springs, Florida, when he was 13. Already fluent in French and Haitian Creole, Guerrier learned English as his third language. 

“It’s kind of magic… being Haitian from an Afrocentric world… being from an island… being able to speak multiple languages,” said Guerrier. 

Nevertheless, Guerrier was an exile in a foreign country, forced to flee the 2004 Haitian coup d’état. He says while he “wanted to be an American,” the more he tried to fit in, the more he felt like he was destroying a precious part of himself. 

Guerrier found refuge at Northwest Regional Library, where he worked as a page, volunteered, helped with community programming, and explored everything from manga and comics to encyclopedias and films to nonfiction and sci-fi books. His curiosity sparked Syllble, an idea that was furthered while reading “Blindness,” an essay in Jorge Luis Borges’ “Seven Nights” collection, as a sophomore at Florida State University.?

“I resonated with how Borges described being in a library as the closest thing to heaven, and how his blindness allowed him to see things in different ways. The impact of his words inspired me to become a writer,” said Guerrier. 

Healing and growth

After graduating from Florida State in 2013 with a bachelor of science degree in international affairs and a leadership studies certificate, Guerrier decided to pursue a master of arts in conflict transformation from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP).?

As a graduate assistant at the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, he worked with its then-director and CJP professor, Carl Stauffer MA ’02 (conflict transformation), and conducted “humbling and eye-opening” field research on the impact of Fambul Tok International in promoting reconciliation in communities after an 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone (West Africa). 

“EMU was a place of healing for me,” Guerrier said. “My peace studies showed me how personal and interpersonal work affects peace in the world.” 

Guerrier worked with CJP Professor Emeritus Barry Hart MDiv ’78 to explore theories and practices of Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Healing (STAR), and in 2014, he started a chapter of Coming To The Table (), a racial healing and reconciliation organization aimed at Taking America Beyond the Legacy of Enslavement—a program that began at CJP. Guerrier later served on CTTT’s board of managers and became its youngest national president.?

Looking to the future

After graduating from EMU in 2015, Guerrier worked on two novels, revising one to the point of exhaustion. 

“It was probably one of the most painful and loneliest experiences I’ve ever had,” he said. 

Guerrier began researching collaborative writing techniques in Hollywood and beyond, which led him to invite three writers to his home to create a story together. The successful session set Syllble in motion. 

Today, Syllble is enabling marginalized voices across the globe to conceive and tell the stories of their shared universes in order to disrupt modern-day inclinations toward disaster and doom. 

“Imagining radically hopeful futures allows us to replace the realities imposed by capitalism and technology and media with something that’s beautiful, nourishing, warm, and healing,” said Guerrier. “It is how we reclaim what it means to be human.”

Guerrier will share his story at EMU TenTalks, held on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 1:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel during Homecoming 2025. For a full schedule of Homecoming events and activities, visit emu.edu/homecoming.

He will lead the development of programming funded by a ., grant of $998,606. The award is part of Lilly’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative, designed to help theological schools across the United States and Canada respond to the most pressing challenges they face in preparing pastoral leaders for today and the future.

The new pastoral leadership program will integrate personal spiritual formation, biblical and theological frameworks and conflict transformation skills. Training will become available in a variety of formats: online digital content, regional on-site trainings, workshops, and new seminary courses and programs. Work is already underway to develop training events for faith community leaders in trauma response and restorative justice for congregations.?

The grant builds on momentum from the graduate certificate in faith-based peacebuilding, a new seminary program offered in cooperation with the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Cook joins EMU after working on a Lilly-funded “Thriving Congregations” grant at Wake Forest that similarly focused on equipping ministry and lay leaders. 

“Dr. Jake Cook brings academic theological training in peace and ethics and an ecumenical background and experience resourcing congregations,,” said The Rev. Dr. Sarah Bixler, associate dean of the seminary. “These experiences will serve him well in implementing EMS’s vision to support ministry leaders and faith communities to understand conflict and develop wise responses.”

Bixler also pointed out that Cook’s expertise in leading integrated programs will strengthen initial development and implementation. “Our program is situated at a unique intersection that brings together distinctive strengths of EMU and EMS: exploring theory and embodying skills in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, undergirded by biblical and theological reflection, and sustained by spiritual formation practices,” she said. “Dr. Cook has expertise in these areas, and he understands the challenges and opportunities congregational leaders are facing. He will be a dynamic and effective leader to develop these program resources.” 

Cook holds a PhD from Fuller Seminary in Christian ethics; a Master of Divinity degree from McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University; and a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Friends University.

Prior to his appointment at Wake Forest, Cook taught for two years at Friends University and also served in administrative roles at both that university and Fuller Theological Seminary.

Cook has published widely on peacemaking and non-violence, and issues of justice and sustainability. In 2021, he published his first book, Worldview Theory, Whiteness, and the Future of Evangelical Faith (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic).

An award-winning scholar, teacher, and preacher, he has presented at the International Conference on Religion and Film, the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, the American Academy of Religion, and the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, and the Conference on Spirituality, Emergent Creativity and Reconciliation, among other engagements. Cook has also developed and taught courses and workshops in the church setting.

The Pathways Initiative is part of Lilly Endowment’s wider efforts to strengthen theological schools and other religious institutions and networks that prepare pastoral leaders to ensure that a diverse array of Christian congregations are guided by a steady stream of wise, faithful and well-prepared leaders.

草莓社区 is one of 105 theological schools receiving these grants. Together the schools represent the broad diversity of Christianity in the U.S. and Canada, with affiliations to evangelical, mainline Protestant, nondenominational, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Catholic, Black church, Latino, Asian-American and historic peace church traditions (e.g., Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, Quakers).

Even though “everyday” traumas are a normal part of life, if left undealt with, they can hinder one’s growth as much or more than the “big” life struggles, she says. Mutungi would know. Her conviction is rooted in personal experience that has defined her professional counseling career, both in Uganda and around the world.

She was born in a western Ugandan cattle-keeping community. When she was seven, her father died suddenly on an operating room table. He left her mother with eight young children. Life was difficult, but her mother, though uneducated herself, committed to sending all eight of her children to school, even the six girls. Mutungi says her mother’s resolve was remarkable in a culture that wasn’t supportive of girls’ education.

By the time Mutungi was in secondary school, stories of atrocities committed by the terrorist group the Lord’s Resistance Army began to filter south. Mutungi, in school in southwestern Uganda, says she was never personally in danger because the LRA stayed mostly in northern Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but she did witness the aftermath of the violence.

By the mid-1990s, Mutungi had graduated with a degree in social sciences from Makerere University and was working for the National Council for Children. “I had to visit areas that had been affected by the violence,” she says. “People were living in internally displaced camps and sometimes were missing parts of their bodies from torture or landmines.” The people she met struggled to cope with the aftermath of violence, displacement and a concurrent growing AIDS epidemic.

Driven by her desire to help people heal from trauma, Mutungi returned to Makerere University to earn one of the program’s first master’s degrees in counseling psychology. In Uganda, as in many other countries, counseling is an unusual profession (Mutungi says those who seek counseling are stigmatized as “crazy people”). So instead of working as a clinical psychologist, she worked as a health program manager of Peace Corps Uganda volunteers, many of whom were working with HIV/AIDS patients and in post- conflict communities in northern Uganda.

She saw that the need for helping people work through their struggles went beyond the work she was doing for the Peace Corps, though. Even people without devastating diseases or living in peaceful regions can struggle to manage whatever it is they are dealing with, she says.

Guiding from negativity to ‘positivity’

In light of this, Mutungi realized that healing must begin with the self before it can filter to larger society. Everyone experiences trauma, she says, but the key is learning how to respond.

In 2012, Mutungi left her Peace Corps job and founded , an organization that seeks to foster resilience in individuals and groups through a combination of workshops, trainings and individualized “learning journeys,” a 6-week program in which participants produce a reflective portfolio on a subject of their choice.

Reflective Learning Uganda utilizes a “strengths-based” approach developed by psychologist Tony Ghaye called, also known as PAAR. (Ghaye is a founder of and related organizations in the United Kingdom, Italy and Nigeria; he is a chairman of Mutungi’s organization.). PAAR uses personal reflection and questioning to change negative thoughts into positive ones, a process that helps participants feel more empowered and resilient, Mutungi says.

“Positivity workshops” are particularly helpful in schools, Mutungi says, offering the example of, a headmaster of a rural secondary school who was worried his students lacked the hope necessary to continue their education and pursue “professional” jobs as lawyers, teachers or doctors.

“The headmaster wanted me to talk to the students about the responsibility they have to shape their own destiny,” she says. So she began a series of workshops to help students reflect on their past and ask questions about what they needed to do to change their attitude.

“The students became excited,” she says. “Some of them said they had never thought of themselves as having strength, just problems. The students ended up forming a group called the Positive Energy Group and planting trees as symbols of growth. The trees don’t grow fast, but if you water them, they will eventually grow into big things.”

STAR tools used in workshops

Another tool she uses in her workshops is (STAR) training. Since 2010, Mutungi completed STAR I and II and the first of the two practicums required to become a certified STAR trainer. In her first practicum, Mutungi helped facilitate a STAR training in South Sudan under the guidance of CJP professor . When she finishes her second practicum (at a yet undecided location), she will be qualified to teach STAR I to others.

“STAR is very important because it is a training that raises awareness about trauma at the very deepest personal level,” she said during a 2013 video interview. “While I had done training as a counseling psychologist and counselor at master’s level, I had not had an opportunity to have such an awareness about trauma resilience and how to get over such an experience before.”

Learning experiences such as those offered by the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, STAR and Reflective Learning, says Mutungi, provide a safe space to share stories people never felt able to share before. Participants learn they don’t have to carry their burdens alone and how to turn their struggles into strength.

“The annual spring lobby weekend engages young people in issues around peace,” says CJP practicum coordinator Amy Knorr. This year’s conference was divided into three sessions: faith-based activism, the issue of climate change, and techniques for effective lobbying.

All graduate students in the conflict transformation program were invited to attend and 17 made the trip, joining nearly 300 other participants from around the country.

“I was primarily interested in going because of the lobbying focus,” said Dina Rubey. “I wanted to gain some practical lobbying skills and experience.”

One tip that the group learned in addressing the issue of climate change was to change the language.

“Talking about climate change is a no-no because half of Congress reels back from those words. So we learned to talk about ‘climate disruption’ instead,” says Knorr.

FCNL organizers teaching lobbying skills suggested focusing instead on climate change as an issue with policy implications: what has been done in Congress and what has not been done and “getting Congress to agree that there are extreme weather patterns across the world,” Knorr says.

Rubey says she also learned that effective lobbying needs to be direct and clear. “Caring about an issue is not the same as having something very specific you want your representative to do,” she says. “Advocating for the issue alone may not get the change to occur. You need to pick a very specific action you’d like your representative to take and tell them what that action is. Lobbyists are in long-term relationships with representatives.” Rubey emphasized that lobbying is not a one-time strategy.

In the afternoon of the third day, the students met with the senior chief legislative officer for Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican whose district covers much of the Shenandoah Valley.

That was the most meaningful part of the weekend for Mikhala Lantz-Simmons. This past fall, she worked on a semester-long conflict analysis project about hydraulic fracturing in Bergton, Virginia. Goodlatte, who supports hydraulic fracturing, is a stakeholder in the issue and she says it was interesting to hear some clarification from his office about his stance.

The students also met with a representative of Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat respresenting Virginia. Knorr says this was an entirely different experience because unlike Goodlatte, Warner is supportive of legislation that calls for bipartisan congressional action to acknowledge the science and reality of climate change.

In the end, “we really want to see how our students can engage on a local level,” says Knorr. “A lot of our students are interested in global peacebuilding, but this is a really good way for us to engage locally and nationally as well.”

Subsequent legs in her journey:

? Three years with in Kenya, where she did STAR work with Doreen Ruto, a from 草莓社区 (EMU).
? Four years with the for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where she studied under and then apprenticed with John Paul Lederach, founding director of .
? Beginning a PhD in expressive arts and conflict transformation from the .

It began here

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Mansfield was on the 18th floor of an office building in lower Manhattan when she noticed scraps of paper floating by her window. She and her colleagues evacuated the building and began walking rapidly northward to get away. She heard and then saw the collapse of the twin towers. Dozens of people from her home suburb of Garden City died in the attack.

“For over a year I couldn’t plan more than five days out,” Mansfield recalls. “A Somali friend later told me, ‘Now you know how we feel every day.’” Ultimately she quit her job at Goldman Sachs, traveled for a year, and found her way to teachers and mentors working in peace education and conflict transformation.

One of these teachers was , who co-facilitated Mansfield’s STAR cohort in 2010. Now they are working as a team, together with program associate and trainer . Zook Barge’s focus is on curriculum development and training; Mansfield’s is on administering the program, developing the STAR network (“learning community”), and producing communications.

STAR’s birth

In late 2001, STAR was born as a partnership between CJP-EMU and to provide resources for responding to trauma in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“What began as a program to provide tools to pastors working with traumatized congregations in New York City and Washington,” says CJP executive director , “has blossomed into a valuable resource for peacebuilders from East Africa to the Middle East to Central America.”

STAR has trained over 5,000 people from 62 countries on five continents. The program has been a springboard for: , which deals with the wounds of racism; , addressing veterans’ re-entry; and , emerging from post-Hurricane Katrina work with teenagers.

“STAR is proof that even out of the most dreadful violence it is possible to grow life-giving and peace-supporting responses,” says , CJP’s program director.

Becoming the director

Mansfield was named director of STAR in early 2015, a position she will hold while continuing to pursue her doctoral studies focused on dance-based and movement-based healing, restorative justice and transforming the wounds of trauma. She succeeded Zook Barge, who had led the program as both its top administrator and chief instructor for eight years, until her requests for splitting the duties bore fruit.

Mansfield’s first job after earning a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1996 was at Goldman Sachs. She started as an analyst, then became an associate and finally a vice president in the investment management division. She spent four years in New York City and four years in London.

In STAR trainings, participants create a drawing called the “river of life.” Reflecting on the flow of her river, Mansfield says the powerlessness she experienced immediately after 9/11 set her on the path – and helped prepare her – for her new role with STAR.

Learn more and download the STAR e-book at: http://www.emu.edu/cjp/star/sept-11th-commemorative-book

Find out for yourself how STAR can transform the world.

“Begin with what you have,” she said, using “your little gift to change the world.”

Gbowee referred with pride in her to being a graduate of EMU (she earned a in 2007) and to being the mother of a 2014 graduate, . “My home is 5,000 miles away from this campus, but this is a place that is very close to my heart.”

She said she chose EMU for her eldest son because she wanted a university with “a whole lot of Jesus and lots of churches” in the vicinity, but “limited partying.”

Mensah, a major, was one of 351 students receiving bachelor’s degrees. Eighty graduate degrees were conferred, including the first graduates from EMU’s two-year-old . Graduate certificates, associate degrees, and pastoral ministry degrees were also conferred.

Among the thousands of family members and friends in the audience were 10 relatives of , a well-known figure on campus for his basketball prowess. Less well-known is that he flunked out of EMU after his freshman year.

Thorne appealed for re-admission, hoping to prove that he could be the first member of his extended family to finish college. The following years were not entirely smooth, including at least one brush with the law. But, in Thorne’s words, basketball coach “stayed in my ear to push me along and to be honest. He never gave up, and he’s been getting on my nerves for four years! But that’s what people need.”

An published in December 2013 showed that Thorne, in his fifth year at EMU, was still struggling to complete his required coursework. Upon reading the article, Coach Dean posted this comment:

You need to really focus and finish strong! You can see the light at the end of the tunnel so keep grinding! Years from now, I need to be able to tell other recruits about ‘Andrew Thorne’…where he came from, what he had to overcome, the contributions you are making to society, and the successful life you are leading now. That’s where this story needs to go over the coming years. Get it done.

When Andrew’s name was called and he walked across the stage to receive his diploma, his father James waved the commencement program in the air and yelled, “It’s about time!”

Andrew’s 27-year-old brother (named James like his father) got leave from his work as a Norfolk-based petty officer in the U.S. Navy to be present. “I knew he was going to make it,” said his brother, though “it was not an easy ride for him.”

Their mother, Wanda, said she is sure “Drew” – as the family calls him – “is going to be successful – he’s proven that he can overcome a lot of obstacles in his life.”

Drew himself was all smiles as he hugged his family, but he was a man of few words in talking about his accomplishment. He simply said, “It means the world. It’s a fresh start. It’s a new beginning.”

More from commencement weekend:

Cords of Distinction ceremony?(podcast)

Seminary commencement ceremony (podcast)

“” – WHSV/TV3 (video)

Nurses’ pinning ceremony (podcast)

Seminary Baccalaureate?(podcast)

She was honored with the Nobel Prize for her work to end the long civil war in her native Liberia. Gbowee’s involvement in the peace movement began in the late 1990s, when she began volunteering with a trauma healing program in the war-torn capital, Monrovia. (CJP professor played a key role in this program, as did one of CJP’s earliest graduates, , MA ’98, who served as a mentor to Gbowee.)

Within a few years, Gbowee had become a leader of a grassroots women’s movement, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Using demonstrations, sit-ins and other nonviolent tactics, the group eventually forced the country’s warring factions to negotiate and sign a peace agreement in 2003.

Gbowee is one of the main characters in the 2008 documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about this movement to end the Liberian civil war. She is also the author of a memoir about her life and activism during the war, Mighty Be Our Powers.

She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female African head of state, and Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni peace activist.

In 2011 – months before the Nobel Peace Laureates were announced – Gbowee was named .” She spoke several times at EMU’s homecoming weekend that fall, just days after learning that she’d won the Nobel Prize. (.)

This year’s commencement will have an important personal component for Gbowee as well – her oldest child, Joshua Mensah, will graduate with a bachelor of arts in digital media. Gbowee has said that .

Gbowee is spending the 2013-14 academic year as a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College in New York. She is the founder and president of the , which supports education and leadership development in Liberia, and a co-founder of both the and the , a global peacebuilding and reconciliation organization. She also serves as an , working on the international nonprofit’s campaigns against poverty and injustice, and as a board member of the and the .

EMU will confer 481 degrees at its 2014 commencement, including 210 earned through its traditional undergraduate program, 146 awarded through its , 117 from its graduate programs, and eight through the offered at EMU’s Lancaster, Pa., site.

Imagine a theatrical performance with no starting script. Several actors listen intently to a volunteer from the audience tell a first-person story. On the cue, “Let’s watch,” the actors interpret the just-told story, playing it back to the storyteller and the audience.

In its simplest form, these are the building blocks of Playback Theatre. And done well, it is theater with a purpose – to build dialogue, understanding, empathy and change.

Two pioneers of this innovative form of dramatic storytelling will arrive on EMU’s campus in early June 2014 to teach a seven-day course at the .

Jo Salas will arrive from her New York base as artistic director of the Hudson River Playback Theatre. As a member of the original group that developed Playback Theatre in the mid-1970s, she is often cited as a co-founder of the movement that has now spread to 60 countries. She is the author of two books on the subject and the speaker of an online talk, “Everyone has a story.”

“Listening to stories with openness and responding with artistry is a unique way to build awareness, connection, empowerment and change. We hope that participants will come out of the SPI course excited and prepared to use aspects of Playback Theatre in their work,” says Salas.

Ben Rivers will arrive from the Jenin refugee camp in Palestine, where he initiated and leads the Freedom Bus troupe, their moniker inspired by civil rights Freedom Riders. The group consists of Palestinian theater artists from occupied Palestinian territories and current-day Israel. They lead playback events in towns, villages, refugee camps and Bedouin communities throughout the West Bank. The troupe has also taught and performed in neighboring Arab countries.

“Freedom Bus events can last for several days and include protective presence activity, building construction, drama workshops, talks, live music and more,” says Rivers. “To participate in the creation and celebration of beauty is a direct affront to a system that tries to brutally crush and dehumanize oppressed people. The stories we ‘play back’ empower ordinary community members to imagine different futures.”

Salas has watched Playback Theatre spread especially during the last 15 years as an instrument for “marginalized voices to be heard and highly charged issues explored.” As an example, she cites her company’s work with immigrants, “whose stories of hardship and courage are rarely heard in our society.”

Speaking in the , Rivers said: “The man who tells a story about torture is no longer alone with his memories and feelings of violation. Nor is he powerless in the way that he was. He chooses to enter the stage. He volunteers to tell. He casts the actors. He gives the final comment. The actors join him in a form of deep accompaniment.”

When Salas and Rivers arrive to teach their course, they will find an EMU playback group that traces it roots to several informal SPI workshops led by Rivers in 2011. Theater students, conflict transformation students, recent graduates and several students from James Madison University form the nucleus of the playback group, according to professor , who co-founded the group.

In the past year, the group introduced its services to students following their return from semesters abroad. In a playback session lasting 90 minutes to two hours, students volunteer to tell their stories, which may include lingering feelings of confusion and isolation. Seeing their stories transformed by the playback actors can create moments of insight, laughter, empathy and understanding, Vogel says.

For more information or to register for the June 5-13 course, “Playback Theatre for Conflict Transformation” with Ben Rivers and Jo Salas, go to or call 540-432-4672. The course is open to all, regardless of acting experience. It is one of more than 20 courses offered at EMU’s 2014 Summer Peacebuilding Institute.

Tapkida, who earned a master’s in from 草莓社区 (EMU) in 2001, has seen Nigeria move from having virtually no leading citizens committed to peacebuilding to having a network of Muslim and Christian peace practitioners who monitor their neighborhoods and faith communities for signs of budding violence and who intervene to head it off.

Emergency responders nip budding violence

Called the Emergency Preparedness and Response Team (EPRT), the system is supported by 10 organizations, encompassing Muslims, Catholics, Evangelicals, women’s groups, the , and others committed to promoting nonviolence and . The monitors, typically EPRT members, use text messages to confer with each other about possible threats and rumors of attacks.

Tapkida cited this example from 2009: Upon learning that Muslim youths were planning an attack on Christians (because the Muslims felt they needed to strike preemptively), a Muslim member contacted her EPRT Christian counterparts, who quickly surveyed their youth groups and found no movement towards a first attack. Reassured, the Muslim member of EPRT was able to calm the Muslim youths.

“Over the years there has been individual transformation and institutional transformation in Nigeria,” Tapkida said during a summer 2013 visit to EMU, where he hopes his middle daughter, Anni, will transfer in as an undergraduate in 2014-15. (Anni is now at two-year Hesston College in Kansas.) When he first began doing peace work in Nigeria, “it was a lonely position. I didn’t know how deep the ocean was, I didn’t even know how to swim.”

Gaining partners after swimming alone at first

Yet, despite the growing commitment of Nigeria’s mainstream religious leaders to peacebuilding, the violence has continued. Tapkida’s home city of Jos is situated in the middle of the country in a region where the largely Muslim population of the north (Muslims constitute 50 percent of Nigeria’s population) bumps against the south, largely inhabited by Christians (40 percent of the population).

As a result, Jos tends to be a flashpoint city. In November 2008, at least 200 people were killed during clashes between Muslims and Christians there, according to the BBC. Violence struck again in January 2010, when at least 149 people were killed during two days of violence between Muslims and Christians, followed by 120 more people killed the following March. At the end of 2010, the Boko Haram Islamist sect took credit for a Christmas Eve bomb attack near Jos that killed at least 80 people.

In May 2013, Nigeria’s government declared a state of emergency in the three northern states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa and sent in troops to combat the Boko Haram Islamist militants. That fight continues to be waged.

Average Nigerian wants end to cycles of violence

Among average Nigerians, however, Tapkida sees a desire to distance themselves from the violence of Boko Haram, which seems to be a fringe effort to fuel cycles of bloodshed between Muslims and Christians that otherwise would be waning.

“Nigerians are beginning to recognize the way religious identity is used for political manipulation,” he said. Two Christian seminaries in Nigeria that rejected Tapkida’s first efforts to encourage peace initiatives are now among his greatest collaborators.

Amid the ashes of the worst violence of 2008 in Jos, when leaders of EPRT (both Muslims and Christians) brought anger, suspicion and grief to a conference table with Tapkida, they ended up sorrowfully agreeing that the only option was for all to work harder at peace.

To heighten awareness and to impart conflict-transformation skills, EPRT has started forming peace clubs in high schools, trying to reach Nigerians who are in the majority – the under 25-year-olds.

Returning to Harrisonburg to regenerate

Despite his successes, “you can get empty working in the field,” said Tapkida, a former evangelical pastor who has worked in various capacities for in Africa for more than 20 years.

“You need to gas up somewhere. Being in Harrisonburg is like being at a filling station. We feel like this is home.” The youngest of Tapkida’s three daughters, Melody, was born in Harrisonburg while he was enrolled in the graduate program at between 1999 and 2001. Tapkida said he extensively uses the teachings from his graduate studies, “contextualizing” them for Africans.

Tapkida – accompanied by Monica, Anni and Melody (their oldest daughter, Nen, was in Kenya doing university study) – came to Harrisonburg in July 2013 during a two-month period of respite before he transitions from his role as MCC regional peace advisor for West and Central Africa to jointly serving with his wife Monica, a former teacher, as MCC country representatives for Zimbabwe.

Tapkida sought the job change to give the West Africans he has mentored room to grow. He was also ready to accept a new challenge; he will be concurrently working on a doctorate in transformative leadership at in Nairobi, Kenya.

Gaining the president’s ear in Chad

As part of his MCC responsibilities in West Africa, Tapkida traveled frequently to Chad during 2008-12. Chad is a landlocked country to the northeast of Nigeria, where in 2008 “Christians felt oppressed and weakened by the political leadership,” he said.

By Tapkida’s second year of work in Chad, “the interfaith vision” of Catholic, Evangelical and Muslim leaders in that country – leaders whom Tapkida had identified and introduced to principles and skills – had reached the president of Chad, Idriss Déby.

As a gesture of goodwill, this Muslim president donated two Jeeps to Christian groups and declared Nov. 30, 2011, to be an interfaith day of prayer. The following year, he appointed one Christian and one Muslim – both drawn from the group trained in conflict transformation – to be his advisors on religious matters.

Tapkida said there is a high demand for peace workers in Chad, which hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing wars in neighboring countries, plus internally displaced persons from conflicts with rebel groups.

“We need to train more trainers of trainers,” said Tapkida. But he feels confident that the peace devotees remaining in that region – such as Sani Suleiman, a Muslim mentored by Tapkida, who took classes at in 2011 – will continue the work he is relinquishing in West Africa with his upcoming move to southern Africa.

on Gopar Tapkida’s earlier peacebuilding work in Nigeria, originally published in , Summer/Fall 2005.

Once complete, , led by Amanda Gross ’07, MA ’13 (), will represent the largest-ever U.S. “yarnbomb,” which Gross describes as a sort of “joyful graffiti” that covers public spaces and objects in knitted artwork. The installation, which will stay up for a month, will include thousands of colorful 34 x 72-inch panels covering the bridge’s superstructure, plus miles of yarn knitted into narrower railing covers.

Gross focused on art as a peacebuilding tool while studying at and came up with the idea of the yarnbomb as a way to inspire wide community participation in a public art project. For the past year, she has been working full-time on the project, which is funded through an and support from numerous organizations.

Process as important as product

“I was looking for different ways to connect people and connect different communities,” says Gross, who organized a much smaller yarnbomb in downtown Pittsburgh a few years ago with other members of the city’s . “The process is just as important as the final product.”

While covering a major and massive physical feature in Pittsburgh with yarn will be a significant artistic achievement in and of itself, both the act of knitting and bridges are symbolic of the connectedness Gross hopes to achieve through Knit the Bridge.

Now entering the final month of frenzied preparations, the community-connecting objective has already been a considerable success. As of early July 2013, some 1,500 people had contributed knitted panels, representing more than 80 percent of municipalities and townships within Allegheny County (home to Pittsburgh), as well as numerous other communities within southwest Pennsylvania.

“It’s really a community project. It’s a wonderful thing, and it’s a privilege to be working on it,” says Penny Mateer, an artist and lifelong Pittsburgh resident who is co-directing Knit the Bridge.

“Amanda is amazing,” continues Mateer. “The initial concept itself was a really lovely design [and] she has quite a vision. She engages people in a way that has been extraordinary.”

All ages, races, ethnicities, classes joining in

Ranging in age from very young to very old, knitters who have contributed panels represent the city’s different racial, ethnic and class communities. Elementary schools have participated; kids in juvenile detention have knitted panels; retirement homes have pitched in. The National Public Radio affiliate in Pittsburgh ran a story in late June about a group of boys in a local program for at-risk teens who are finger-knitting a piece for the bridge.

Gross and her colleagues drummed up support for the effort through social media, word of mouth, and with the help of about 90 people who volunteered to lead outreach and organize knitting parties in their own communities. Other than rules against letters, numbers or other representational imagery, contributors were given free rein to design their individual panels.

The Knit the Bridge installation will remain up through September 8. After coming down, the panels will be washed and donated to charity.

“[Knit the Bridge] connects everybody,” says Sherri Roberts, vice-president of the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh, one of the project’s major supporters. “From start to finish, it has unified, it has made joyful, and it has connected.”

Like Gross, she hopes that new connections made through participation in Knit the Bridge will continue long after the panels come down.

One reason for the project’s wide appeal, Gross says, is that knitting and crocheting are generally seen as accessible “crafts” rather than fine art.

“That part has made it really easy for people to get excited about it and feel like they can be a part of it,” Gross says. “A lot of people are missing that…. They just want an opportunity to participate.”

Hundreds of volunteers doing the logistics

In addition to the knitters, hundreds of other volunteers – a pro-bono attorney, technical advisors, database developers – have pitched in on the formidable logistics of pulling off the yarn bomb, Mateer notes.

Gross said that behind-the-scenes work has been the biggest challenge of the project, particularly the task of shepherding an unusual and never-before-attempted idea through the bureaucracy of local government. (It’s not every day that someone rings the Allegheny County administrative offices asking how to go about covering a major downtown bridge in yarn.) In mid-June, the county council unanimously approved an ordinance to allow Knit the Bridge to proceed.

“I’m really hopeful that the county will figure out some sort of public art policy, and that this will open more doors for more creative, grassroots projects,” Gross said.

Also as of late June, the community-made panels totaled 116,688 square feet of hand-knitted or –crocheted panels. The black border to go around the knitted panels will use 600 miles of yarn, while the bits on the towers – to be installed by a rigging company – will be close to 3,000 linear feet of machine-knitted yarn.

“Participating has meant a lot to people,” Gross adds. “People really jumped at the opportunity to do something positive for their community.”