, PhD in Social Work 2008, Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. Dissertation title: “A Study of the Quality of Life of Sri Lankan Refugees Living in Camps in Tamil Nadu.” Current work: Chief Zonal Officer in CASA (Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action). “We work in the villages of India. I coordinate development efforts in the four southern states of India. Our focus is on poverty alleviation and political awareness and empowerment of the oppressed classes, particularly the dalits, tribals, women and backward castes.”

, PhD in Theology 2005, University of Durham in the United Kingdom. Dissertation title: “Corporate Discipline and the People of God: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5.3-5.” Current work: College and seminary professor of religion and a mediator in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Previously Brenneman was an assistant professor of religion and the director of peace and conflict studies at Mennonite-affiliated Bluffton University in Ohio. “My dissertation was a study of community discipline in the ancient church in Corinth, with implications for churches today.”

, PhD in Peace Studies 2008 from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. Dissertation title: “A Transformative Approach to Public Dispute Resolution: A Study of the U.S. Model and the South Korean Case.” Current work: Education and publication, including book writing, focusing on peacebuilding and conflict transformation; lecturer at universities, special events and workshops for different groups. “I published a book titled Conflict Resolution in Korean Society in 2010. I also translated a book entitled Managing Public Disputes. Both books are my efforts to introduce conflict resolution/transformation to Korean society and encourage people to take different approaches to conflict based on dialogue and collaboration.”

, PhD in Political Science 2004 from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India. Thesis title: “Refugee Problematic and Regional Security in South Asia.” Current work: Assistant professor in the  in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Kaushikee’s online curriculum vitae list dozens of seminars given, workshops led, conferences organized, and papers, monographs and a book published, both in India and in other countries, notably the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the United States. Her range of interests is wide—from human rights to conflict resolution—but she has demonstrated a particular interest in the Gandhian approach to peace and conflict resolution.

, Doctor of Letters (D.LItt.) 2012, Drew University in New Jersey. Dissertation title: “On the Survival of Mennonite Community in Modern-Day America: Lessons from History, Communities and Artists.” Current work: Editor-in-chief at ��ݮ����, including writing and editing Peacebuilder magazine. “The Mennonite church-community offers the world a distinctive and much-needed minority voice on behalf of living peacefully and helping people who are suffering. I hope this community will resist the historic trend of the assimilation of minority communities into the dominant culture.”

, PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution 2010 from the School for Conflict Analysis & Resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Dissertation title: “The Politics Of Ritual: Exploring Discourse Regarding The Use Of Ritual In Northern Uganda.” Current work: Chief of Programming and Training for Africa Region of the United States Peace Corps. “In this role I provide strategic oversight and guidance to the development efforts of 25 country programs in Africa.  It is the largest regional program in the Peace Corps—approximately 41 percent of Peace Corps Volunteers serve in Africa. Though not the largest part of what I do, I have started a post-conflict support initiative for our programs in Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Liberia.”

PLUS: Three female graduates earned doctoral-level law degrees before enrolling in CJP: , Doctor of Law 1988 from the Catholic University in Quito, Ecuador; , JD 1988 from George Washington University School of Law; and , JD 1987 from West Virginia University School of Law.

brought a heart-wrenching documentary film with him when he returned for a brief visit to EMU on June 30, 2011.

Shown to about 50 of his old friends and colleagues at the EMU library, the film told of terrorized women living in Khandamal, a small district of Orissa, a state in the eastern part of India. These women were part of a minority group – in this case Christian – violently victimized by mobs from the surrounding majority-Hindu group.

From Ashok’s perspective, the nature of the minority status in this case is less significant than the reality that all minorities tend to be highly vulnerable to persecution by majorities, unless a culture of tolerance, mutual respect and reconciliation is fostered.

“I’ve worked a lot in Sri Lanka, and there the Sinhalese majority group is Buddhist and the minority group is the Tamil-speaking, who are mostly Hindu and Muslim,” says Ashok. “Regardless of the groups involved in the struggle, the fundamental issue is that everyone deserves the same basic rights of shelter, food, clothing, a means to make a living, and freedom to worship as they see fit.”

Ashok and his wife, , often work as a team traveling to hot spots upon request for trainings in conflict transformation and trauma healing, usually over weekends. During the week, both of them hold demanding jobs in southern India – Florina does operations capacity-building for a refugee self-help organization and Ashok is professor of social work at a major university. Both of them earned PhDs in India after completing their master’s degrees at CJP in 2004 as Fulbright scholars.

“The first question I always ask when I go into a situation is, ‘What happened?’ and then I always hear two different stories, depending on which ‘side’ I am speaking to,” said Ashok. “Then I say, ‘Well, let’s put parts of these stories together and see if we can answer the next questions, Who has been affected by this event? What are the violations and what are the needs? Can we take joint responsibility to address these needs?’

“Answering these questions takes days, of course, of people talking in settings, with facilitators, where they feel safe and can be honest and vulnerable,” Ashok told Peacebuilder. “We have to start with conversations and move to relationship-building to emerge from the trauma cycle of victimization, vengeance and re-victimization.”

In the past year, Ashok has focused intently on helping to alleviate the suffering – and break the cyclical violence – experienced by impoverished Christian citizens living in Khandamal. Over a period of 300 days, 50,000 of them were displaced from their homes and several of their villages were reduced to ashes. And it all could be traced to a misunderstanding about the killing of a popular Hindu swami. Local followers of the swami blamed Christians, but Ashok said actually a Maoist group admitted responsibility for the killing. “My goal is to help the people of this region to create what I think everyone wants, deep in their hearts – a just and peaceful society,” says Ashok.

In one part of Sri Lanka, Ashok and Florina have assisted the people in post-war reconstruction, using development as a tool for building peace. They facilitated a “peace dialogue,” which enabled community members who had been avoiding each other to begin to interact.

Two years later in this community, when a terrorist incident caused the Sinhalese-dominated military to sweep through the homes of Tamils, Ashok says the local Sinhalese gave shelter to their Tamil neighbors and told the military, “If you want to take them, you’ll have to take us first.”