Organized by the Student Government Association, College Conservatives, and Young Democrats, the series was funded by an Inclusive Excellence Grant from EMU’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as a Pluralism Project Grant. About 50 students attended each session, held at the University Commons Student Union on the evenings of March 12, March 19, and March 26.

Senior biology major Maria Longenecker, who helped organize the series as SGA co-president, said she hopes it can serve as an example for others to follow. At a time of heightened political division, she said, it’s more important than ever to bring people together.

“EMU encourages us to work toward peace and justice and resolve conflict, and this feels so woven into our values,” she said. “I think we created something we saw was missing, and we see that missing in the world more broadly. It’s so tempting to disengage, but I hope this can serve as an example for how to lean in and continue to care for one another.”

‘The elephant on campus’

“Disagree Together” formed in response to tensions that student leaders felt on campus last fall. After a campus vigil for Charlie Kirk sparked arguments in the Royal Radar group chat, Longenecker said it became clear that students needed a space to discuss political issues.

“That demonstrated to us how much energy and conflict is under the surface here at EMU that we often don’t address,” she said. “It feels like the elephant on campus.”

SGA leaders heard from students across the political spectrum who said they felt ostracized and misunderstood because of their beliefs, with no clear place for them on campus. Longenecker and fellow co-president Leah Frankenfield believed it was important to pull in many perspectives to dream up a way forward. They met with the College Conservatives and Young Democrats to develop a space where students of all political persuasions could feel comfortable.

Dibora Mekonnen, co-president of Young Democrats, said the series created a meaningful space for students to engage in difficult and sometimes uncomfortable conversations in a respectful way. “I believe it has positively affected students by helping them become more open-minded and more willing to engage with perspectives different from their own,” she said. “In shaping the campus, the series has contributed to a culture of dialogue, understanding, and community-building by showing that disagreement does not have to lead to division, but can instead become an opportunity for learning and growth.”

Jacob Dwyer, president of College Conservatives, said he also felt the event was a success and was encouraged by the turnout. “I think it’s important that we engaged in meaningful dialogue,” he said. “Going into it, I knew we might not agree on everything, but because we were able to have open conversations, we gained a better understanding of why we each think about certain issues the way we do.”

Longenecker said she was surprised by how willing people were to be honest with one another. “I thought it would be harder to get people to have conversations about the things they disagreed on,” she said. “But once people got in a room, sat down, and started asking questions, it was beautiful to see that engagement happen.”

The Why and the How

The series unfolded over three sessions, each focusing on a different aspect of disagreement.

The first session centered on the question, “Why do we disagree?” Students mapped their identities to better understand how their experiences shape their beliefs and examined how those views are formed. Kory Schaeffer, director of programs for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, facilitated the discussion and offered guidance on creating a respectful environment for disagreement.

The second session was titled “How do we disagree?” and featured a panel discussion on politics and Christianity. “We thought that was important to discuss because EMU is an Anabaptist institution, and it’s such a central part of our values,” Longenecker said.

The third session, “Practice disagreeing,” invited students to sit in small groups and ask one another questions about political topics or anything else they were curious to explore. “It was beautiful to look around and see people, who I’ve never seen talk to each other before, sit down and have these deep conversations about their beliefs,” Longenecker said.

She said she believes new relationships have formed as a result of the “Disagree Together” series, especially during the third session. “I hope people walked away feeling like someone new sees them as a person first and is also interested in hearing their beliefs,” she said. “I hope it’s started conversations that will continue.”

As members of the SGA executive board prepare to hand off leadership to their successors, she said they’ve developed a plan outlining how future boards can respond and create similar spaces for students to engage in difficult conversations if another contentious event arises on campus. “I see this as a beginning, not the end,” she said.

They turned to greet neighbors, each invited to speak in his or her native language. Many said “Hello”; a few, “Hola!” or “Bonjour.” Sebastian Bukenya, a young Roman Catholic priest from Uganda, asked, “Oli otya!” (in the Luganda language, “How are you?”).

The mood among these 84 visitors from 35 nations seemed undampened either by chilly, wet weather or slightly reduced attendance as the 14th annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute opened May 4 at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř.

Samuel Waihenya Njoroge from Kenya introduces himself in the opening session of the 2009 Summer Peacebuilding Institute. The first SPI session, May 4-12, drew 84 people from 35 countries.

“As I look at your faces and listen to your voices, I feel the presence of the whole world here,” SPI’s new executive director Sue Williams told the gathering in Martin Chapel.

Learners at SPI – a program operated by EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding – work in humanitarian, conflict resolution and other peace-related areas in their home countries. Ninety-six had been expected for the opening session, but attendance has been deterred by visa restrictions combined with the global economic downturn and swine flu outbreak, Williams said.

Students combine faith and social issues with trauma healing

Bukenya, attending for the first time, had learned of SPI through his service on a peacebuilding team in Kampala. His parishioners, having endured prolonged hardships in their country’s 23-year-long civil war, face challenges that he characterized in part as “trauma healing and forgiveness.” Hoping to gain theoretical knowledge to strengthen skills he has been acquiring by practice, Bukenya has enrolled in two classes: “Faith-Based Peacebuilding” and “Philosophy and Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation.”

“I’m fighting for the rights of women in Pakistan,” said Razia Joseph, president of the Women Shelter Organization in Faisalabad, a city in her nation’s Punjab region. Her organization promotes women’s education and health care, assists women in prison and provides shelter for victims of domestic violence. In contacts with fellow-peacebuilders in SPI, she hopes to call attention to the plight of the women in her country.

SPI global network now in the thousands

More than 2,200 alumni from all parts of the world have attended SPI. During four sessions spread over six weeks, SPI learners form cross-cultural friendships and working partnerships while studying many aspects of solving conflict.

New courses and instructors this year include “Faith-Based Peacebuilding,” offered by Roy Hange, co-pastor of Charlottesville Mennonite Church and Harrisonburg District overseer for the Virginia Mennonite Conference; and “Human Rights, Governance, and Peacebuilding,” taught by Dan Wessner, EMU professor of international and political studies. SPI training sessions will include mediation and facilitating crime victim/offender dialogue.

(L. to r.): Mary Beth Spinelli, Krista Johnson and Pam Welsh, students in the MA in conflict transformation program and SPI participants, place symbols representing various cultural and faith traditions at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute on a table during a welcoming gathering.

“The ideal global learning experience would be for each of us to spend a year working alongside every person here,” said Williams. Although that is not possible, she noted, “We have SPI.” Williams replaced former SPI director Pat Hostetter Martin following her retirement last year.

Williams’ work includes healing in Northern Ireland

Before arriving on campus in Fall 2008, Williams had lived and worked in Northern Ireland, Uganda, Kenya and Botswana, and had served as a consultant on political mediation and dialogue in a training program for the Mediation Support Unit of the United Nation’s Department of Political Affairs.

Read more about William’s work in Ireland in the spring/summer issue of Peacebuilder. The magazine also details the work of other CJP professors and EMU community members long involved in the peace process there.

“We are here to be learners and teachers. We are not here to have a vacation,” Williams noted. However, shared meals, sports, music and local sightseeing enrich the cultural learning.

The opening ceremony by CJP students featured symbols of diversity – small flags from many lands, colorful fabrics and religious symbols. A round loaf of bread served to symbolize unity. “If you are not familiar with the term, ‘potluck,’ you will be during your time at SPI,” an announcer promised. Read more about the opening ceremony and Koila Costello-Olsson from Fiji…

Masters in conflict transformation at CJP

Some SPI participants earn credit toward a masters’ from the CJP program, which has awarded degrees to about 300 graduates now working in more than 50 nations, said CJP executive director Lynn Roth.

A standby in SPI opening ceremonies is the introduction of each guest by home country. Nations represented this year included Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Kenya, Palestine, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, the Ukraine, the UK, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Canada and Honduras.

Following prayers from several languages and faith traditions, the class work began.

The SPI program, with six intensive classes in each of the four sessions, will run through June 12.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer living in Harrisonburg.

A specialist in trauma healing at EMU has edited a book on the subject, published by University Press of America.

Barrett S. (Barry) Hart, associate professor of conflict and trauma studies in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř, compiled the 362-page volume, “Peacebuilding in Traumatized Societies.”

Dr. Hart’s work examines trauma, identity, security, education and development as central issues related to peacebuilding and social reconstruction in the aftermath of large-scale violence.

This violence “takes the form of war, mass-killings and genocide as well as structural violence that has humiliated and impoverished millions of people across the globe,” he noted.

Global Focus

The book examines these issues in theoretical and practical terms through case studies and descriptions of training and problem-solving procedures in Rwanda, the Balkans, Columbia, and the Philippines.

These examples illustrate the multi-layered dimensions of struggle to recover from individual and community trauma, move forward the social reconstruction processes and negotiate the demanding path of peacebuilding to break the cycle of violence.

Transitional justice, leadership, religion, and the arts are other crucial issues that are included in Hart’s analysis of violence and its transformation.

The book “explores how each issue can be independently addressed for transformational purposes, but argues for their active interdependence in order to more effectively help individuals, communities and societies emerge from violence and begin the rebuilding process,” Hart said.

Leading peacebuilding practitioners have contributed to the book, including a chapter by Hart’s CJP colleague, Lisa Schirch, “How the U.S. Can Recover from 9/11 Using Media Arts and a 3D Approach to Human Security.” Dr. Schirch is professor of conflict studies at EMU.

Author’s Other Efforts

An EMU faculty member since 1996, Hart is also academic director of the Caux Scholars Program, a month-long summer academic program called Conflict Transformation: From Personal to Global Change, in Caux, Switzerland.

He has conducted workshops on trauma healing and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and among Rwandan refugees in Tanzania and has lived and worked in the Balkans, where he developed and lead trauma and conflict transformation programs for schools, communities and religious leaders.

He is currently working on a joint project between EMU and the University of Hargeisa to establish an Institute for Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Somaliland.

Hart holds a Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

The book is available at the EMU bookstore and on line at .

Participants Dr. Babasheb Ghatage, India’ Stephanie Rodriguez, Belgium; Sikhululekile Mkandla, Zimbabwe’ and Rita Magar, Nepal, listen to welcomes at the opening session of the 13th annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute at EMU.

“This is a mini-U.N,” SPI Director Pat Hostetter Martin announced jubilantly as she surveyed faces in Martin Chapel at the opening session.

SPI enrollment – having dropped earlier due to international travel restrictions – increased slightly this year, along with a rise in nations represented. Though flight delays increased, more international students were able to obtain visas.

Most SPI participants are working in fields such as peacebuilding, restorative justice, relief, development and human rights.

Primarily sponsored by home-based organizations, they complete workshops at the Harrisonburg campus in conflict transformation, trauma awareness and recovery and strategic nonviolence and restorative justice under the direction of EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP).

Cultures Unite

Friendships grow as they share living quarters, meals, cultures, perspectives and fun.

Represented at SPI are many ethnic groups, faith traditions, governments and economies; experiences of privilege as well as poverty and sometimes homelessness.

“We come from homelands at war and from communities that have lovingly sustained us,” Martin noted.

2008 SPI Participants

Passing a microphone, guests introduced themselves and their homes, which included Jordan, Italy, Burma, Israel, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Liberia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dubai, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Vietnam, Uganda, Kenya, Northern Ireland, India, South Korea, Ghana, Colombia, the United States… and an indigenous nation located within it.

‘Beauty’ All Around

Robb Redsteer and Don Yellowman are citizens of the Dine Nation (a.k.a. Navajo) in northern Arizona.

Yellowman – here for his first SPI – led a prayer in the Dine language which ended in words translated as “beauty behind me, beauty before me, beauty beneath me, beauty above me.”

Don Yellowman (left) and Rob Redsteer from the Dine nation (they prefer that name over Navajo, given them by the Spanish) in Arizona lead a prayer of blessing in their native tongue to close the opening gathering.

He and Redsteer, an SPI 2007 alumnus, aspire to being “traditional peacemakers” and starting an organization of Dine peacebuilders – not as an arm of tribal government, formed to address civic issues, but as a venue for what Redsteer calls “bigger issues” such as environmental preservation.

Having studied peacebuilding methodology here a year ago, he brought Yellowman to help expand that knowledge.

At the gathering celebration, Redsteer told of hosting Middle Eastern students from CJP last summer on his reservation west of the Grand Canyon. He enjoyed hearing them sing in their native Arabic, while reflecting, “In my culture, we don’t sing anymore.”

Redsteer wants to help revive the Dine culture, in the wake of the U.S. government historically severing Native American children from it.

“I hope to hear my grandchildren sing in the Dine language,” he said.

He and Yellowman heard of SPI at a conference in Albuquerque when they met EMU conflict studies professor and SPI instructor Jayne Docherty, whose focus is applying peacebuilding principles to deep-rooted conflicts in America.

New Workshops, Faculty

SPI workshops new this year include “Faith-Based Conflict Transformation: Beyond Realpolitik and Secularism.” A recent addition is “Using Media to Promote Peace.”

New SPI faculty include EMU graduate Gopar Tapkida, West African regional coordinator of the Mennonite Central Committee peace network.

“We have some of the finest faculty, but they will join me in saying they learn as much from you,” EMU President Loren Swartzendruber told the audience in welcoming them to the Shenandoah Valley and to campus.

Petra Sachova from the Czech Republic introduces herself during the opening session of SPI. James Tucolon from Liberia is seated next to her.

Bringing a Lilies of the Valley bouquet, Phoebe Kilby, CJP associate director of development, noted that in traditional floral lore, those blooms signify “return of happiness.” Following her remarks, SPI Program Associate Bill Goldberg led a moment of silence for victims of the past weekend’s devastating cyclone in Burma.

A slide show created by CJP community assistants, led by Jonathan Jenner, featured a map with many pictures of diverse people emerging from continents. SPI’s four sessions, each lasting approximately 11 days, will run through June 13, drawing some 218 participants from 50 countries.

by Robert Rhodes, Mennonite Weekly Review

WASHINGTON