, distinguished professor of restorative justice, will speak at 91短视频鈥檚 2017 Commencement. Beginning at 1 p.m., Sunday, April 30, on the front lawn, the ceremony awards undergraduate and graduate degrees, and includes students from the Harrisonburg campus and Lancaster (Pa.) site.
For Zehr, the experience will be especially gratifying. 91短视频鈥檚 first degree in the program, offered through the , will be conferred on a student who brings years of professional experience working in the field that Zehr played a large role in establishing.
festivities begin on Friday, April 28, with Eastern Mennonite Seminary Baccalaureate, followed by the seminary鈥檚 commencement ceremony on Saturday in Lehman Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. Professor Erin Dufault-Hunter, of Fuller Theological Seminary, offers the commencement address.
On Saturday evening, the Cords of Distinction ceremony for selected exemplary undergraduate students is at 4:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel, followed by Baccalaureate at 7 p.m. with speaker Professor Deanna Durham. A concert and president鈥檚 reception conclude the evening.
Sunday brings a host of departmental activities, including nurses鈥� pinning ceremonies and special receptions in the morning and evening.
The main ceremony, which will be livestreamed for those who cannot attend, begins at 1 p.m. on Sunday. To view a livestream, visit
Howard Zehr: working from harms to healing
Widely known as 鈥渢he grandfather of restorative justice,鈥� Zehr began as a practitioner and theorist in the late 1970s, when he became director of the first U.S. victim-offender reconciliation program, Elkhart County Prisoners and Community Together (PACT). Zehr moved the program from probation into the community, a transition which pre-figured the concept鈥檚 development from the criminal justice arena into its current wide application across many areas, notably education.
By Zehr鈥檚 definition, r is 鈥渁n approach to achieving justice that involves, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offense or harm to collectively identify and address harms, needs and obligations in order to heal and put things as right as possible.鈥�
Restorative justice has wide roots in indigenous practices: two examples of this are peacemaking processes in Navajo courts in the southwestern United States, and the used in Pukhtoon population of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Since the 鈥�70s, Zehr has led hundreds of events in more than 25 countries and 35 states, including trainings and consultations on restorative justice, victim-offender conferencing, judicial reform and other criminal justice matters.
Zehr holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was the first white student to graduate from the historically black college. He went on to earn an MA in European history from University of Chicago and a PhD in modern European history from Rutgers University.
He joined 91短视频鈥檚 Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in 1996. Zehr serves as co-director of the , established in 2013. He retired from teaching in May 2015, when he was attended by about 300 former students, colleagues and friends from around the world.
His groundbreaking book , was recently issued in its 25th anniversary edition.