LOS ANGELES VISIONARY ARTIST AND FUTURIST FABRICE GUERRIER MA ’15 (CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION) has been selected by ��ݮ����’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.

Erin Campbell MA ‘22 (conflict transformation) is using the skills she acquired from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) to heal harms in her community.

Campbell is co-director of (CVCJ). One of CVCJ’s programs is a partnership with the Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ offices in Charlottesville and Albemarle County and public defender’s office to divert criminal cases away from the courts and into a restorative justice process. CVCJ offers a way for people to make amends directly to those they have harmed as an alternative to prosecution.

Rather than focus on punishment, restorative justice (RJ) programs like CVCJ emphasize healing and safety. Trained facilitators with the nonprofit work with willing participants—those responsible for harm, those who were harmed, and anyone else affected—to share their experiences, acknowledge the harm done, and agree on a resolution to repair it. Proponents of RJ say the process encourages trust and accountability, supports the needs of those who were harmed, and results in lower recidivism rates than the traditional legal system.

“Instead of isolating people in jail or through a sterile criminal legal process, we’re connecting people to empathetic facilitators who treat everyone with dignity and who center the needs of the harmed person and the safety of the community,” Campbell said.

Since its start in 2022, CVCJ has successfully resolved about 35 incidents of harm. These include assault and battery, embezzlement, racialized vandalism, hit-and-run, and a DUI, among other felony and misdemeanor charges.

During her third year at EMU, as she searched for a practicum, Campbell learned about an RJ pilot program beginning to take shape in nearby Charlottesville. The pilot, which would later become CVCJ, sprung from a collaboration between Albemarle County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Neal MA ‘11, Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania, and the at CJP. Tarek Maassarani, an RJ practitioner and visiting professor at CJP, served as an adviser to the project.

Campbell started her practicum with the program in January 2022, just as it launched. The first cohort of facilitators received training in RJ practices over the next two months, guided by the experts at CJP, and began taking their first cases that spring.

Campbell said CVCJ is different from other diversion programs in ensuring that its services are offered at no cost and that its facilitators reflect the gender, race and age of participants whenever they can. The facilitators are also paid more than a living wage, she added.

“Many diversion programs only use volunteer facilitators, which typically means a select demographic of people… generally older, white, retired folks,” Campbell said. “Plenty of those folks make great facilitators, but the demographic doesn’t represent the diversity of participants we actually service.”

Each month, CVCJ adds one to two new cases, including noncriminal situations such as a conflict between teachers in a school or a harm that those involved in would rather not report to police. CVCJ is also starting to offer training in restorative practices to schools, organizations, and individuals.

“As we know, restorative justice moves at the speed of trust,” Campbell said. “We’re lucky to have the partners we have in the public defender’s office and in both Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ offices. Even with that, turning around a criminal legal system that’s existed for a couple hundred years is like turning around an ocean liner. Luckily, we’re patient people.”

Learn more about CVCJ at .

Want an update on EMU Professor Emeritus Howard Zehr? UChicago Magazine has published a profile on Zehr, who earned his master’s in history there in 1976. The article traces Zehr’s career and corresponding interactions with and personal philosophy of restorative justice.

Zehr has been called “the grandfather of restorative justice” and is proud of the label, but quick to qualify it. The idea of accountability through conversation has deep roots: many Indigenous groups around the world have for centuries used community dialogue to resolve conflict. Zehr sees himself not as an inventor of restorative justice but rather as a communicator on its behalf.

And there’s other interesting details about what Zehr is up to:

Zehr has always loved photography and found ways to incorporate it into his work; his books Doing Life: Reflections of Men and Women Serving Life Sentences (Good Books, 1996) and Still Doing Life: 22 Lifers, 25 Years Later (The New Press, 2022) feature portraits of prisoners serving life sentences. Now he’s begun doing volunteer work as a hospice photographer. He’s still writing—mostly technical articles for ham radio operators, a welcome return to his childhood hobby.

Join us Wednesday, April 20, at the following events in Lehman Auditorium (masks are required):

• A panel discussion on social justice and mass incarceration at 10:10 a.m. facilitated by CJP students Iman Shabazz and Addison Tucker, and community leader Hannah Wittmer. In-person only.
• A public lecture at 7 p.m. In-person and .

Miller’s visit is made possible by the collaboration of the following co-sponsors: Provost’s Office, the , Convocation, EMU’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Language and Literature programs, and the.

As a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and as a sociologist studying mass incarceration, Reuben Jonathan Miller has spent years alongside prisoners, formerly incarcerated people, their families, and their friends to understand the lifelong burden that even a single arrest can entail. What his work reveals is a simple, if overlooked truth: life after incarceration is its own form of prison.

Miller’s new book, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, is a portrait of the many ways mass incarceration reaches into American life, sustaining structural racism and redrawing the boundaries of our democracy. Drawing from fifteen years of research, over 250 in-depth interviews with citizens whose lives have been touched by the criminal justice system, and his own experience as the son and brother of incarcerated Black men, Miller shows how the American carceral system was not created to rehabilitate. Instead he reveals how its design keeps classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they’ve paid their debt to society.

Miller is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago in the School of Social Service Administration. Before coming to Chicago, he was an assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan, a faculty affiliate with the Populations Studies Center, the Program for Research on Black Americans, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey; a fellow at New America and the Rockefeller Foundation; and a visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and Dartmouth College. A native son of Chicago, he lives with his wife and children on the city’s South Side.

Howard Zehr, distinguished professor of restorative justice at ��ݮ����, and co-author Barb Toews MA ‘00 will talk about their book “Still Doing Life: 22 Lifers, 25 Years Later” in a webinar hosted by the .

The free event will be Wednesday, March 16, from 12-1:30 p.m. EST. The book, with a release date of March 15, is published by The New Press. All webinars will be livestreamed on the  and on .

A recording of the webinar will also be available after the event at the organization’s website.

The authors are also participating in an online event in Washington state, where Toews is professor of criminal justice at University of Washington. On Monday, March 21, at 6 p.m., the co-authors are featured guests on . They will discuss the implications of the American criminal justice system and the consequences of life sentences. ADDED 4/19:

Here’s for another event the authors participated in, hosted by the Pennsylvania Office of Victim Advocate.

In 1996, Zehr published Doing Life (Good Books), with portraits of individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole at a prison in Pennsylvania. Twenty-five years later, Zehr revisited many of the same individuals and photographed them in the same poses. 

The book presents the two photos of each individual side by side, along with interviews conducted at the two different photo sessions.

Zehr has published other similarly formatted books offering intimate perspectives on people harmed by violence.

In 2001, (Good Books) featured portraits and stories of 39 victims of violent crime. Many of these people were twice-wounded: once at the hands of an assailant; the second time by the courts, where there is no legal provision for a victim’s participation. 

“My hope,” says Zehr, “is that this book might hand down a rope to others who have experienced such tragedies and traumas, and that it might allow all who read it to live on the healing edge.”

Read a 2011 Peacebuilder article on Zehr’s book “What Will Happen to Me?” featuring photos of 30 children whose parents are incarcerated, along with the children’s thoughts, plus some reflections by their caregivers. Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz is the co-author.

The process, sponsored by the local commonwealth’s attorneys, will divert criminal cases in Charlottesville and Albemarle County away from traditional proceedings and into a restorative process designed to offer opportunities for participants to reflect upon their decisions and meet with those who have been impacted.

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Neal Pollack, a 2011 graduate of CJP, was hired specifically for her expertise in the field. She and colleague Samantha Markley have been key promoters of the program, especially in connecting with CJP and EMU faculty expertise and resources. 

Read more about the alumni involved below.

Restorative justice processes have proven to have beneficial outcomes for participants, including those harmed, over proceedings of traditional justice processes, says Tarek Maassarani, visiting professor at CJP and advisor to the project. He has been involved in setting three similar diversion programs in the Washington D.C. metro area and is working with prosecutor’s offices in Arlington and statewide in Nevada.

The program is sponsored in part by a JustPax Fund grant for $8,500, awarded to The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in October 2021. 

�䴳��’s has also contributed $7,500 to the project to support restorative justice training, facilitator mentoring, and a project coordinator.

The coverage below appeared in the 2021 CJP Impact Report. Click here to learn more about CJP’s work in 2021.

��ݮ���� welcomes several new faculty for the 2021-22 academic year. (This article features only full-time faculty).

Tarek Maassarani JD, visiting professor of restorative justice, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice 

Tarek Maassarani will teach at CJP and in SPI, advise graduate students in practica, staff the Zehr Institute, and consult on a pilot program sponsored by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

Maassarani is currently assisting in establishing restorative diversion programs, facilitating restorative justice processes with a focus on cases of sexual harm, directing a religious peacebuilding project in Chad and Cameroon, and offering training for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

In 2015, Maassarani co-founded Restorative DC, a community-based initiative of the organization SchoolTalk, that provides technical assistance and professional development to help schools implement restorative justice practices, as well as divert arrested youth out of the juvenile system.

Previously, Maassarani worked in a variety of dialogue, youth development, restorative justice, and environmental and social justice advocacy settings, such as the Latin American Youth Center in D.C. and Seeds of Peace in Maine. He has also taught at Georgetown University, the American University School of International Service, and other institutions. 

He holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a juris doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. 

Maassarani co-authored the Corporate Whistleblower Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011), and published a variety of journal articles on human rights and USIP religious peacebuilding action guides. 

Gaurav J. Pathania PhD, visiting professor, sociology and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Guarav Pathania brings research and teaching expertise on social justice and critical inquiry, with special interest most recently in the South Asian diaspora in the United States. His ethnographic research examines the intersection of caste, class and ethnic politics and explores issues of education and health among socially marginalized communities. 

He comes to EMU from teaching positions at Georgetown University, Catholic University,  George Washington University. His current research affiliations include the Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California; and as researcher at a project for the Pacific University supported by the Commission on Global Social Work Education.

He is the author of The University as a Site of Resistance: Identity and Student Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), which explores the ways in which student activists mobilize, network and strategize on and off-campus, leading to dynamic and transformative social movements and change.

Pathania holds a doctorate in sociology and two master’s degrees in the sociology of education and sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, as well as master’s degrees in public administration and English literature from Kurukshetra University. His anti-caste poetry has appeared in the J-Caste journal of Brandeis University.

Kyle Remnant DMA, director of bands

Kyle Remnant will direct EMU’s wind ensemble, jazz band and pep band, as well as teach and offer solo lessons. He earned his BA in music at Bridgewater College and an MM and DMA at James Madison University. A trombonist, Remnant has appeared with the Charlottesville, Waynesboro and Middletown, Ohio, symphonies, in the Staunton Music Festival and with the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra. He debuted internationally with the Sulzbach-Rosenberg International Music Festival. In addition to his work at EMU, he serves in adjunct teaching roles at Bridgewater College and James Madison University, and directs the jazz band at Harrisonburg High School.  

Allison M. Wilck PhD, assistant professor of psychology

Allison Wilck joins EMU’s psychology department. She earned her doctorate in cognitive psychology at University at Albany, State University of New York, in 2021 while also teaching several courses, including statistics for psychology and memory and cognition. Her dissertation, recognized  by the university with a Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award, was titled “Intense News: The Role of Emotion in the Perception of (Fake) News.”

Wilck was honored in fall 2020 with the Daniel and Wendy J.L. Keyser Teaching Excellence Award by the College of Arts and Sciences, University at Albany. The award is for a graduate student who shows outstanding teaching ability.

She also holds a master’s degree in psychology from University at Albany and a BA with High Honors in psychology and sociology from State University of New York Geneseo.

Wilck spent five years as a supervisor within the Cognition and Language Laboratory, and has conducted research, published and presented on numerous topics, including the bilingual brain, metacognition, memory, emotions, conflict and child development, and the survival processing effect.

Ashok Xavier MA ‘04, PhD, Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence, social work

Ashok Xavier comes to EMU from Loyola College in Chennai, where he has been head of the social work department since 2014 and a faculty member since 2000. He is also the current academic director of the Caux Scholars Programme, Asia Plateau, based in Switzerland, and an adjunct faculty member at the Management Centre in Austria.

He holds a PhD from University of Madras. He earned an MA on conflict transformation while a Fulbright Scholar at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, and also holds a master’s degree in social work from University of Madras.

Xavier has advised, consulted and provided training within projects related to human rights advocacy, capacity building, organizational structures, peacebuilding and mediation, and social and microcredit enterprises. He’s worked with refugees, displaced persons, HIV/AIDS patients, churches, nonprofit organizations, and tribal communities, among many other groups.

He has also written scripts and produced 11 documentary films, as well as explored the power of theatre for healing trauma. 

Florina Xavier MA ‘04, PhD, Practitioner In Residence, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Florina Xavier will be a Practitioner in Residence at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and teach one class in the spring semester.

She balances teaching roles at the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, Philippines, and in the Caux Scholars Program, Switzerland with regular consulting work. A recent role was as a regional return and reintegration advisor with projects and partnerships in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Myanmar for the Australian organization ACT for Peace. She worked with Afghan refugees through Tabish Social Health Education Organization (TSHEO) and with Kyrgyz Republic refugees through UNHCR. 

Xavier is a graduate of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU. She also holds a master’s degree in social work from Madras College and a doctorate in social work from Osmania University. She is a Fulbright Scholar and Oxford Fellow. 

She has conducted trainings in more than 30 countries on a range of topics including psychosocial healing, mediation, trauma healing and gender-based violence. Xavier brings extensive experience in project management and consulting, including a recent tsunami relief project managing a budget of $5M with multiple international partnerships among nonprofits and the United Nations. 

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at ��ݮ���� welcomes several new faculty and staff for the 2021-22 academic year.

“CJP is blessed to have highly qualified faculty members joining us on temporary appointments this year,” said Jayne Docherty, �䴳��’s executive director.  “In addition to their excellent academic credentials, they bring field experience and access to networks of practitioners that will enrich our learning community. As the hiring process evolved, I was struck once again by the way the universe so often aligns to bring an interesting mix of people to CJP. 

Docherty pointed out that three additions –Tarek Maassarani, Joao Salm, and Jon Swartz – will “expand conversations and activities in restorative justice.”

Ashok and Florina Xavier were slated to arrive at CJP last year, but were delayed by the pandemic.

“Their arrival now coincides with the presence of Gaurav Pathania, and we all will no doubt have interesting conversations about justice and peacebuilding in India and South Asia more broadly,” Docherty said. 

Tarek Maassarani JD, visiting professor of restorative justice, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice 

Tarek Maassarani will teach at CJP and in SPI, advise graduate students in practica, staff the Zehr Institute, and consult on a pilot program sponsored by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

Maassarani is currently assisting in establishing restorative diversion programs, facilitating restorative justice processes with a focus on cases of sexual harm, directing an religious peacebuilding project in Chad and Cameroon, and offering training for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

In 2015, Maassarani co-founded Restorative DC, a community-based initiative of the organization SchoolTalk, that provides technical assistance and professional development to help schools implement restorative justice practices, as well as divert arrested youth out of the juvenile system.

Previously, Maassarani worked in a variety of dialogue, youth development, restorative justice, and environmental and social justice advocacy settings, such as the Latin American Youth Center in D.C. and Seeds of Peace in Maine. He has also taught at Georgetown University, the American University School of International Service, and other institutions. 

He holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a juris doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. 

Maassarani co-authored the Corporate Whistleblower Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011), and published a variety of journal articles on human rights and USIP religious peacebuilding action guides. 

Gaurav J. Pathania, PhD, visiting professor, sociology and Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Dr. Pathania brings research and teaching expertise on social justice and critical inquiry, with special interest most recently in the South Asian diaspora in the United States. His ethnographic research examines the intersection of caste, class and ethnic politics and explores issues of education and health among socially marginalized communities. 

He comes to EMU from teaching positions at Georgetown University, Catholic University,  George Washington University. His current research affiliations include the Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California; and as researcher at a project for the Pacific University supported by the Commission on Global Social Work Education.

He is the author of The University as a Site of Resistance: Identity and Student Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), which explores the ways in which student activists mobilize, network and strategize on and off-campus, leading to dynamic and transformative social movements and change.

Pathania holds a doctorate in sociology and two master’s degrees in the sociology of education and sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, as well as master’s degrees in public administration and English literature from Kurukshetra University. His anti-caste poetry has appeared in the J-Caste journal of Brandeis University.

Jonathan Swartz MA ‘14, associate director, Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice

Jonathan Swartz joins the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice in a co-leadership role. He is director of student accountability and restorative justice at EMU. In his work with Zehr Institute, he will develop new opportunities for teaching, training and consulting, and connect the institute and CJP to restorative justice on campus.

Swartz brings experience partnering and collaborating with many of �䴳��’s programs, including with ZI, the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program, and with graduate students in practica for both the conflict transformation and restorative justice programs. One example was Swartz’s involvement in co-creating and facilitating a multi-day training on restorative justice, trauma awareness and resilience for the National Park Service. [Read more about this work in partnership.]

Swartz holds certification as a trainer for the Green Dot violence prevention program. He’s also created, led or co-led workshops on sexual harm prevention, has guest-lectured in graduate and undergraduate courses on restorative justice, and taught courses in restorative justice, leadership, college transitions, and Bible and religion.

Swartz holds a master’s degree in conflict transformation from EMU, a Master of Divinity degree from Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and a BA in psychology from Bethel College.

Joao Salm, PhD, visiting fellow, Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice

Joao Salm, a native of Brazil, is an associate professor of criminal justice at Governors State University in Illinois. He will join EMU in February for a number of activities, including class visits and the presentation of a university colloquium on the application of RJ to environmental conflicts in Brazil. 

He holds a PhD in justice studies from Arizona State University, and a master’s degree in public administration and a bachelor’s degree in law from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. 

Salm is a co-founder, with noted expert Elizabeth Elliott, Brazilian judges, and the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of an international cooperative agreement between Canada and Brazil in restorative justice. He was also a consultant to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund and the United Nations Development Program in the area of restorative justice in Guinea Bissau and Fiji.

He is co-editor of the book, “Citizenship, Restorative Justice and the Environment — A dialogue between Brazil, the United States, Canada, Spain and Italy” (Lumen Juris).

Ashok Xavier MA ‘04, PhD, Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence, social work

Xavier comes to EMU from Loyola College in Chennai, where he has been head of the social work department since 2014 and a faculty member since 2000. He is also the current academic director of the Caux Scholars Programme, Asia Plateau, based in Switzerland, and an adjunct faculty member at the Management Centre in Austria.

He holds a PhD from University of Madras. He earned an MA on conflict transformation while a Fulbright Scholar at CJP, and also holds a master’s degree in social work from University of Madras.

Xavier has advised, consulted and provided training within projects related to human rights advocacy, capacity building, organizational structures, peacebuilding and mediation, and social and microcredit enterprises. He’s worked with refugees, displaced persons, HIV/AIDS patients, churches, nonprofit organizations, and tribal communities, among many other groups.

He has also written scripts and produced 11 documentary films, as well as explored the power of theatre for healing trauma. 

Florina Xavier MA ‘04, PhD, Practitioner In Residence, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Florina Xavier will be a Practitioner in Residence at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and teach one class in the spring semester.

She balances teaching roles at the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, Philippines, and in the Caux Scholars Program, Switzerland with regular consulting work. A recent role was as a regional return and reintegration advisor with projects and partnerships in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Myanmar for the Australian organization ACT for Peace. She worked with Afghan refugees through Tabish Social Health Education Organization (TSHEO) and with Kyrgyz Republic refugees through UNHCR. 

Xavier is a graduate of CJP who also holds a master’s degree in social work from Madras College and a doctorate in social work from Osmania University. She is a Fulbright Scholar and Oxford Fellow. 

She has conducted trainings in more than 30 countries on a range of topics including psychosocial healing, mediation, trauma healing and gender-based violence. Xavier brings extensive experience in project management and consulting, including a recent tsunami relief project managing a budget of $5M with multiple international partnerships among nonprofits and the United Nations. 

Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement Alicia Garza will speak at ��ݮ���� (EMU) during the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s 25th Anniversary Celebration banquet on June 5, 2021.

“This is an unparalleled privilege that Alicia Garza accepted our invitation to be our keynote speaker; what an honor,” said Patience Kamau, anniversary committee chair.

The celebration, a three-day event from June 4-6, is all virtual.

“We know our prospective guests will be attending from many different time zones, which means live attendance may not be possible,” said Kamau. “All sessions will be recorded and we ask that you register in order to receive the links to recordings after the event.”

It will also feature sessions with CJP co-founder John Paul Lederach, 2019 MacArthur Fellow and restorative justice attorney sujatha baliga, Ahimsa Collective founder Sonya Shah, an alumni gathering and oral histories with women critical in founding CJP and former executive directors of the center. On Sunday, Executive Director Jayne Docherty gives a “State of the Center” address.

‘A lot to learn’

After postponing the 2020 celebration, Kamau and Docherty were thrilled at Garza’s willingness to reschedule a year in advance.

“We have a lot to learn from Alicia Garza,” said Docherty. “More students enrolling in our programs are bringing a focus on undoing the continuing legacy of racism, white supremacy, genocide of native peoples, and other forms of oppression in the United States.”

is one of the three co-founders of Black Lives Matter. Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors started the first chapter in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. According to their , the global Black Lives Matter network “is a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”

The movement gained prominence in 2014 for activism in Ferguson, Missouri, after the murder of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson. Now, the movement has over 40 chapters in four countries.

Garza: Racism the ‘least understood’ phenomenon in this country

Garza, who is based in Oakland, California, currently serves as the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which advocates for domestic workers in the U.S. In 2019, she helped launch Supermajority, a membership-based organization that aims to build equity and power among women in America through advocacy, community building, and electoral participation. 

She is also the principal at Black Futures Lab, a project to build “Black political power” and influence and transform black communities. One of their initiatives, the Black Census, polled over 30,000 African Americans on the issues they face and tangible solutions to those problems. The census is “the largest survey of Black people conducted in the United States since Reconstruction,” according to their .

“I think race and racism is probably the most-studied social, economic, and political phenomenon in this country, but it’s also the least understood,” Garza said in a .  “The reality is that race in the United States operates on a spectrum from black to white. It doesn’t mean that people who are in between don’t experience racism, but it means that the closer you are to white on that spectrum, the better off you are, and the closer to black that you are on that spectrum, the worse off you are.”

As as a “queer Black woman,” she brings an intersectional lens to her justice work, addressing racial issues alongside those of gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. 

Garza’s first book, (Doubleday, 2021), was published earlier this year. Her writings have been featured in the , , , and many more. Among other awards, she was recognized as one of the most influential African Americans by .

Matt Tibbles MA ‘18 is the featured guest of this week’s episode of Peacebuilder podcast. Tibbles speaks with host Patience Kamau MA ’17 about and trauma-informed classrooms.

The “Peacebuilder” podcast, in its second season, is a production of ��ݮ����’s, as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. 

More than 6,500 listeners in 102 countries and 1,239 cities across the globe enjoyed Season I.

The podcast is among just a handful covering the general peacebuilding field. It is available on, Apple Podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, TuneIn and other podcast directories.

During the conversation, he shares moving personal stories that actualize both his learning journey and the important peacebuilding ideas he studies, practices and teaches – drawing from experiences as a youth pastor and a juvenile detention officer, in education and prevention for a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter, and from among his students in classrooms at EMU.

A 2018 graduate of ��ݮ����’s , Tibbles is an organizational development and conflict transformation professional with experience working in and with multi-ethnic for-profit businesses, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and indigenous tribes. He balances teaching at EMU with consultancy work among organizations and school districts, focusing on co-creating dignity and honoring trauma-informed and restorative organizational cultures. 

Tibbles brings these experiences into the courses he teaches to undergraduates in the peacebuilding and development program and the sociology program. He also teaches graduate courses at CJP. 

Tibbles begins by describing a pivotal experience of de-escalating conflict while working as a youth pastor in the Pacific Northwest. Witnessing the effect of trauma on the child involved pushed him to explore the concept more fully in the youth group he worked with at the church. Later in Alaska, he worked at a juvenile detention facility where he encountered trauma-informed care and practices. Night shifts there allowed for deeper exploration of restorative justice, especially through webinars offered by the and readings of The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr (Good Books, 2002).

There, Tibbles began to ask different and probing questions about the behavior of the teens he worked with: One guiding question was “In what reality does this behavior make sense?” Viewing those behaviors through a trauma lens, as responses to trauma, helped him and others he worked with see how daily protocols and practices could raise fear and anxiety. For example, walking directly behind a teen in transition between activities triggered a stress reaction, but shifting slightly into her peripheral vision was a much less threatening position. 

While our default approach might be “blaming and judging,” asking questions about why behavior might be happening “allowed us to see a much bigger, broader picture of what was going on,” Tibbles said.

After studies at CJP, he’s worked to integrate restorative justice and trauma-informed pedagogy within the larger university community with a ripple effect as students across the disciplines see the potential and benefits to bring those principles into various settings.

“When we’re able to create trauma-informed and resilient systems, my hope is, and I’m seeing it a little bit from students that have graduated, or even students that have transferred out of EMU into another university or college, is that they’re taking these experiences of being trauma-informed and resilient into their own communities into wherever they’re going,” he said. “And they’re beginning, in small ways, to shift systems that haven’t been trauma informed, or, or haven’t focused on resilience into systems that are beginning to explore just even a little bit of what that means and how it [can be] transformative.”

Law enforcement, security, and mediation professionals looking to finish their bachelor’s degree may find a perfect fit in a new concentration at ��ݮ���� (EMU). A new certificate in restorative justice is now available through EMU’s Adult Degree Program, in which adults returning to college earn a bachelor’s in leadership and organizational management. 

The certificate can be earned as part of the leadership and organizational management, or on its own for those who already have a bachelor’s degree. 

When taken in conjunction with the leadership and organizational management coursework, students just add one restorative justice class per semester of their program, to graduate at the same time as their cohort. 

“This is about giving people an opportunity to learn new practices and skills, to think differently about situations in which they find themselves, to seek less harmful outcomes,” said Margo McIntire, program coordinator. “It’s the old adage that if the only tool you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail.”

McIntire said the impetus for the certificate came from a growing national recognition of the benefits of having restorative justice practitioners in our institutions and communities. 

“Of course, EMU is widely known for its excellence in pedagogy and practice of restorative justice. The time seemed ripe to make this more broadly accessible,” she said. 

Four classes are required to earn the certificate:

• PXD 261 Community and Conflict Analysis Techniques, 
• PXD 331 Restorative Justice and Trauma Awareness,
• PXD 341 Mediation and Facilitation, and
• SOWK 360 Race and Gender.

EMU has been at the forefront of the restorative justice movement for nearly 25 years. To learn more, look for RJ courses in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in the mid-90s and check out upcoming and past webinars.

Published 3/18/21

Find all episodes here.

Enjoy a livestream interview on Tuesday, March 30, from 4-5 p.m. and hear more about how the podcast began, what’s new for Season II, and why this unique format is such an exciting way to talk about and learn from peacebuilding practitioners. Lindsay Martin, CJP development director, is the host. 

EMU students, faculty and staff can access secure Zoom links for events by visiting the Calendar page after logging into my.emu.edu. Events opened to the public will be available via  page. [You do not need a Facebook account to access Facebook live.]

After a decade of service at ��ݮ���� and the , Professor Carl Stauffer has accepted a new position as senior expert in reconciliation at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The Washington D.C.-based organization is funded by Congress and works globally with country partners to reduce violence and advance peaceful resolutions to conflict. 

“We are grateful for Carl’s teaching and mentoring within our CJP community over the years and his significant legacy that is embodied in the work and contributions of his students around the world,” said CJP Executive Director Jayne Docherty. “We are so proud that USIP has tapped one of our faculty for this important position and look forward to a continuing relationship with Carl as he shares what he is learning and doing in Washington.”

Stauffer joined the faculty of CJP in 2010, teaching graduate-level courses in restorative and transitional justice. He also taught a range of courses, including peacebuilding theory and practice, nonviolence, international development, and faith formation for justice and peace.

Stauffer helped to launch the in 2012 and served as co-director first with Howard Zehr and then with his colleague, Professor Johonna Turner. 

Among his contributions to CJP, he developed the prospectus for the MA in Restorative Justice program. The second graduate degree offered at CJP, the MARJ was accredited in fall 2015.

From 2015-17, Stauffer secured and worked with CJP staff to implement a 3-year grant from the Porticus Foundation. As a result of this funding, the Zehr Institute was able to host a high-level international consultation, a public conference, and a bi-national listening project exploring the potential for restorative justice as a social justice movement. 

A product of this funding is a forthcoming anthology, , co-edited by Stauffer and Ted Lewis (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2021).��