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.

As young adults, Myers-Benner and her husband, Jason, spent a year working at an orphanage in Bolivia. They returned to Harrisonburg “struggling with big, big questions, and [CJP] was a place where questions were welcome, and not only welcomed but engaged,” she says. Myers-Benner then got her first job with what was then called the Conflict Transformation Program in 1999 as a work study student.

“I cannot reflect on my 20 years at CJP without Nora coming prominently to mind,” Myers-Benner says. Nora, the Myers-Benners’ second daughter, was born in October 2007 with a rare genetic condition. Myers-Benner worked from home and hospital throughout Nora’s life and returned to the CJP office when Nora was about four or five months old, baby in tow. 

She remembers the community rallying around her family during this time. In one story Myers-Benner recounts that Linda Swanson, a student at the time, “almost filled the CJP freezer with these big trays! I think she fed our family for a couple weeks … that was this abundance of generosity and this outpouring of love.” A CJP alumna, Ann McBroom, took Nora for long walks while Myers-Benner helped the program transition to EMU’s new database.

“Many of the people who come through our doors are just unforgettable people … the roots feel very deep, and the connections feel very deep,” Myers-Benner says.

Her hopes for CJP going forward are also focused on the people. In another 25 years, Myers-Benner says she hopes the school will further “center the leadership of indigenous people and people of color.”

“We need leaders who are creative, who can dream, who can hope, who can envision something different than what we currently have, who’ve shown the ability to rise above immense challenges.”

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.

“Kay Pranis is a one of the best teachers of circles in the world,” says (CJP) program director . “We are very fortunate to have her working with us.”

Used in many settings

Pranis is an international leader and freelance trainer in restorative justice and peacemaking through circle practices, which bring together victims, offenders, community members, and police officers to discuss how best to respond to a crime. Moving beyond cases of crime, she has worked with others to facilitate the use of peacemaking circles in schools, social services, churches, families, museums, universities, municipal planning and workplaces. (For an overview of her work and her background, view her 2013 Chautauqua Institution lecture on “.”)

The circle process is one of the core foundational concepts of CJP’s training for peacebuilders and has been used with positive results in many regions with a history of long, entrenched conflict, Docherty says.

“This is an important, transformative and deceptively simple process for engaging people around really hard issues,” she added.

The course begins Friday, Feb. 5, from 6-9 p.m. and continues Saturday from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday from 1-6 p.m.

Pranis has taught a 1-credit course on circles at CJP every year for the past 13 years. She returns to teach a second course for CJP in response to high demand. (Pranis is currently a member of the CJP , a group of expert advisors who help guide and shape the mission and work of the center.)

Circles ‘balance needs’

Diana Tovar Rojas, a CJP graduate student and political scientist from Colombia, took Pranis’ class in November. The course was a “wonderful learning and healing experience,” she said. “Not only is Kay a highly experienced circle keeper, but also a warm and spiritual one.”

Rojas has worked with UNICEF Colombia and within the juvenile justice system in the United States. She sees a great value in utilizing circles to “develop the ability to create a space for emergence and unlock the potential for collective knowledge sharing.”

Pranis first encountered peacemaking circles in the mid-1990s when studying with Barry Stuart, a judge in Yukon, Canada and also with Mark Wedge and Harold Gatensby, First Nations people of Yukon. Before that time, she worked six years as the director of research services at the Citizen’s Council on Crime and Justice.

From 1994 to 2003, she served as the restorative justice planner for the Minnesota Department of Corrections. Since 1998, Kay has conducted circle trainings in a diverse range of communities—from rural farm towns in Minnesota to Chicago’s South Side.

Of her own journey learning about and working within the circle process, Pranis says: “The circle became a way for me to see how humans can live more successfully with each other and the natural world, balancing group and individual needs and gifts. The circle became a way to move to a kind of world that I want to live in.”

Pranis has written widely on the subject: two recent publications are Circle Forward: Building a Restorative School with Carolyn Boyes-Watson (Living Justice Press, 2014), and Doing Democracy: Engaging Communities in Public Planning with Jennifer Ball and Wayne Caldewell (Living Justice Press, 2010).

More information about course content is

For more information and registration, email , CJP academic program coordinator, at bennerj@emu.edu.

As the drape covering the large painting was removed, the striking colors and rugged tree motif of the framed acrylic-on-canvas art piece registered audience approval.

Some 400 people gathered at ��ݮ���� June 3-5 were celebrating 10 years of a program that, like the tree in the painting, has grown way beyond expectations.

“The remarkable growth of the EMU program is much like a tree rooted in the Earth, weathered and strengthened through experience that will keep it alive for years to come,” the artist, Jude Oudshoorn, said. He is a first-year student in the CJP program from Toronto, Canada.

EMU launched the Conflict Transformation Program in 1994 with two American students, two professors, a box of file folders and an administrative staff member. Ten years later, it has seen more than 2,500 people from 83 countries take one or more of its courses, with 160 of these earning a masters degree or graduate certificate in Conflict Transformation.

The June 3-5 celebration was a spirited mix of reflection on the past decade, recognition to founders and supporters of the internationally- recognized peacebuilding program and worship and music on a peace and reconciliation theme.

During the weekend, participants attended an interactive workshop and an intense one-woman play by Israeli-American actress Noa Baum, a “concert of peace and justice songs” by noted musician John McCutcheon and selected from some 15 special interest workshops on topics ranging from restorative justice and trauma healing to responses to the 9/ll tragedy.

During a celebration dinner Saturday evening, the program officially changed names from Conflict Transformation Program (CTP) to the .

, CJP co-director, said the change was made “because we’ve developed rapidly into a multi-pronged program and this name better reflects who we are.

“The term, conflict transformation, often raised more questions than it answered,” Zimmerman said. “But most people readily understand peace and justice, and peacebuilding is an active process at the heart of our program that we work at together.”

John Paul Lederach, one of the founders of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at EMU, uses a Tibetan song bowl as an illustration in a dinner meeting address to open the tenth anniversary celebration.
Photo by Jim Bishop

Zimmerman said that the “incredible growth” of what is now CJP presents a problem – “It’s difficult to keep growing, given our limited current office and classroom space, coupled to the pressing need to increase scholarships for worthy students with limited financial resources.”

At a Saturday brunch, a number of long-time donors to the program who attended the celebration heard expressions of appreciation from current CJP students from eight countries who have received financial assistance.

student Sara Kauffman Brown, born and raised in South Africa and currently working in a mental health program with traumatized people in Sierra Leone, said the Summer Peacebuilding Program “brings people from around the world together in an intense experience in community. We look after each other and leave with a feeling of support for our work.”

“I’m committed to this program that helps persons from other countries receive training to return to their homelands or other places and work in peace initiatives,” said Dwight Hartman of Harrisonburg. “I feel it deserves to expand as much as possible to develop better attitudes between countries.”

CJP benefactors Herb and Sarah Bucher Myers of Mt. Joy, Pa., both EMU alumni, support the program because they believe it is “making a difference” in applying Anabaptist principles to build a better world. “As we hear how students in the program are connecting with hurting people, we feel it is privilege to support this effort,” Myers said. The couple’s daughter, , is a CJP administrative assistant.

EMU President reflected on the center’s mission in the closing session Sunday morning held at Park View Mennonite Church.

“The Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 5 calls us to become ambassadors for the cause of Christ,” Dr. Swartzendruber said. “We are given the ministry of reconciliation, to God and to each other through our common bonds as members of the human community.

“I am passionate about peacemaking because it is, for me, the logical extension of what I believe it means to be a follower of Jesus,” the president said. “I can’t picture the Jesus I follow as the pilot of an F-16 dropping bombs on his enemies. It’s a real stretch to imagine Jesus on the safe end of an assault rifle. I can’t read the Sermon on the Mount and believe that Jesus meant that for another time and place or only for those set apart as ‘religious.’

“It may seem crystal clear to us that to be in authentic relationship with Christ requires us to be reconcilers. But it is painfully clear that such a passion is a minority world view, not a perspective that is regularly celebrated in many of our communities.

“We can be passionate, but we change the world one conversation at a time,” Swartzendruber declared. “And, that requires us to be in authentic relationship with the other.

“This tenth anniversary celebration has been a wonderful event,” he said in closing. “God has done a marvelous thing among us and for that we are grateful. As we go from this place, filled with passion and enthusiasm, renewed for the task of peacebuilding, let us do so in joy and with hope.”

The service included the premiere of a song written and sung by three students in the M.A. in peacebuilding program.

Ferdinand Waweka Djayerombe from the Congo, Laura A. Schildt from the United States and Hind Ghorayeb from Lebanon gave an enthusiastic rendition of “Journey” in appreciation for their experiences at EMU and as a celebration gift.