Born and raised in the Mennonite church, Rhodes grew up believing she was called to be a peacemaker. But that early understanding of peace, she admits, made her avoid conflict rather than engage in it.

Then, two students, burly Russian men seated near the back of the classroom, began arguing. 

Within moments, the tension shifted. Chairs scraped. Voices sharpened. The exchange turned physical. And Rhodes realized something that would change the course of her life.

“I could talk about peace, but I didn’t actually know how to respond when presented with conflict,” she said. “When I returned to the United States, I knew I needed to learn how to handle conflict.”

She scuttled her previous plans to pursue a graduate degree in English and instead studied conflict analysis and resolution at George Mason University, earning both a master’s degree and a PhD. While at graduate school, she was hired by Professor Emeritus Dr. Vernon Jantzi ’64 to help coordinate the newly launched Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at 91����Ƶ. 

For 34 years, Rhodes has taught at 91����Ƶ, primarily in its world-renowned Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP). Today, she serves as academic director of CJP and professor of peacebuilding and conflict studies. She also teaches courses in conflict transformation and peacebuilding for the undergraduate program and the master of nursing program. 

Rhodes has led semester and summer intercultural programs in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, South Korea, and the Navajo Nation. She has served as department chair of 91����Ƶ’s Applied Social Science Department, administrative director of SPI, and as a program assistant for the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution.

With SPI turning 30 this year, we sat down with the long-tenured professor to talk about the values-based education offered at CJP and how students are bringing more peace and justice to the world.

The following responses are from an interview that Rhodes conducted with photographer and videographer Macson McGuigan ’17. A video from their interview will publish later this spring. These responses were edited for conciseness.

What’s unique about CJP?

Many other programs teach basic communication or mediation skills, but what we add at 91����Ƶ goes deeper. Our focus is on who you are and what you bring. Beyond the technical skills of conflict transformation, students engage in deep reflection and introspection around questions of:

• Who am I?
• What are my values and identities?
• What do I uniquely contribute to this work?
• And where do I fit in creating a more just and peaceful world?

We challenge students to connect their personal growth with leadership. They consider how to bring these skills and values into the places where they already work and lead. That combination of skill and self-assessment is the value we offer.

What can CJP grads do with their degrees?

There are generally three directions our students take. 91����Ƶ a third go into direct practice, often working with nonprofit or non-governmental organizations anywhere in the world. These roles can include mediation centers, community outreach, or other supporting positions where they apply skills like facilitating discussions and bringing together diverse groups to meet community needs.

Another third pursue further education. Many go on to doctoral programs to study conflict more deeply, contribute to policy, or prepare to teach in this relatively new field. 

The final third continue in their current careers in positions ranging from ministry, health care, business, and government. They’re drawn to CJP because they want to improve how people work together, make decisions, and solve complex problems.

Why should people study at CJP?

We are truly about creating a learning community together. This isn’t a place where you come to be filled up with knowledge. You come because you want to explore your part in making the world more peaceful, and together, we figure out how to bring more peace and justice to the world. 

We can’t do it alone, and no single set of skills fits every situation. That’s why our approach is based on mutuality and learning, where everyone’s experiences and knowledge matter. Students contribute what they know, and at the same time, gain practical skills they can use in their own contexts.

Our focus is on practice, not just theory or research. We care about what people can do to make the world more peaceful and just. CJP is a place to learn, share, and build that future together.

What kinds of hands-on experience is offered at CJP?

Our curriculum is intentionally designed to include hands-on practice in the community. For example, in the facilitation course, our graduate students are contracted by local groups and organizations to help facilitate meetings or support decision-making processes. While students are learning and practicing new skills, the organizations also benefit from their work.

At the end of the master’s program, students can choose a traditional thesis, but most complete a practicum. These opportunities are diverse, ranging from restorative justice and trauma healing to mediation, facilitation, and training. Alumni often connect current students with new practice opportunities, ensuring a rich network of real-world engagement.

What is the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI)?

Part of how we support our students is by offering courses in the summer, not as traditional summer school, but as a training institute. These courses and trainings, held in May and June, allow anyone to explore topics related to conflict, restorative justice, and other areas of practice. Courses generally last five to seven days, and multiple courses run simultaneously over the two-month period. 

SPI is intentionally designed as a learning community. Students live in dorms, attend classes and lectures, and learn from one another, all while experiencing what it means to live together in a diverse community. It’s both a retreat and a training space. As one alum described, SPI is like a well where people can take a drink of water. It’s not going to feed them forever, but it’s nourishment they can take back into their work and communities.

In a Facebook post about his passing, the shared that Augsburger had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer on Oct. 23. He died peacefully at his California home surrounded by family and loved ones on Oct. 30, the post reads.

A memorial service for Augsburger will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 19, at La Verne Church of the Brethren in La Verne, California. 

Augsburger was recognized as an authority in the fields of pastoral care, counseling and reconciliation. He was a prolific writer, penning more than 20 books including Conflict Mediation Across Cultures (1992), The Freedom of Forgiveness (1988) and Sustaining Love: Healing and Growth in the Passages of Marriage (1989). He authored the popular Caring Enough series of books, beginning with Caring Enough to Confront: How to Transform Conflict with Compassion and Grace in 1980. His feature articles have appeared in more than 100 different periodicals. 

Former Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) Professor Lonnie Yoder, associate dean of the seminary from 2010 to 2016, called Augsburger a pioneer in the field. 

 “If he didn’t write the first book, it was among the first in pastoral counseling in terms of culture: Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures (1986),” Yoder said. “He was at the forefront of that dimension of pastoral counseling, which is now complete with lots of work. He was one of the first to recognize that when you do counseling, cultural context is really important.”

Augsburger also was known by many for his voice. From 1961 to 1975, listeners across the country tuned in to hear him speak and promote the Gospel on The Mennonite Hour radio program, which was based in Harrisonburg. His productions won 10 awards for creative religious broadcasting.

“His style focused on the Anabaptist evangelical response to the social concerns of the day: war and peace, racism and interpersonal relationships. Witty turns of language and thought held attention and conveyed truth” (). 

Augsburger held a bachelor of arts degree with a major in Bible from Eastern Mennonite College (EMC) and a bachelor of divinity degree from EMS. He received a PhD from the Claremont School of Theology in Southern California.

His brother, Myron, was a professor of theology at EMC and led the college and seminary as its fifth president from 1965 to 1980. Another brother of his, Aaron Donald “A. Don,” graduated from EMC and EMS and taught in the field of Christian education at the school.

Augsburger was a pastor at Trissels Mennonite Church in Broadway, Virginia, from 1963 to 1971. He taught at Northern Baptist Seminary near Chicago and at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, before joining Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He served as professor emeritus of pastoral care and counseling at Fuller from 1990 to 2018. He and his wife Leann pastored Peace Mennonite Fellowship, a church in Claremont, California. 

In a , Fuller Theological Seminary touted Augsburger’s work as a dedicated minister of the Mennonite Church and as a diplomat of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. 

“Augsburger’s impact reached far beyond the classroom,” it reads. “He taught counseling, led workshops internationally, and provided supervision and therapy, embodying the principles he espoused in his teachings.”

‘A communicator of outstanding ability’

George Brunk III ’61, SEM ’64, was a year behind Augsburger at EMC and EMS but the two were close friends. The duo sang “shoulder to shoulder” in choral groups as bass singers, Brunk said.

“He was a person of multiple talents,” Brunk said. “He was always a prominent voice in whatever setting he was in.”

Brunk would later serve as a professor at EMS and as dean of the seminary from 1977 to 1999. Although Augsburger was not employed by Eastern Mennonite, he would often return to campus for speaking engagements. 

“He was a communicator of outstanding ability,” Brunk said. “He had an ability to grasp onto big ideas, but he gave attention to communicating those ideas and to applying them in practical ways to life.”

Yoder, a former professor of pastoral care and counseling at EMS, recalled Augsburger speaking at the School for Leadership Training — now called Shalom Academy — at the seminary a few decades ago.

“He did an amazing job of connecting with students,” Yoder said. “He was obviously a very brilliant individual, but he could communicate in a way that people understood.”

When EMS Professor Tim Reardon, who received his PhD from Fuller, was a pastor at Pasadena Mennonite Church in California, he asked Augsburger for help resolving a conflict within the congregation.

“He was a great resource for understanding reconciliation issues,” Reardon said.

He lauded Augsburger’s support for members of the LGBTQ+ community in the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, and spoke highly of him as a mentor. 

“He was such a loving, genuine and honest person,” Reardon said. “His family loved him so much. It’s hard to imagine he’s gone.”

“Peacebuilding and development” and “environmental sustainability” will offer students hands-on opportunities to prepare to be agents of change in their local communities and around the world, motivated by their commitment to Christ.

Peacebuilding and development

This new major is a combination of the “justice, peace and conflict studies” major and the “applied sociology” program, with its international development and environmental sustainability emphasis.

Peacebuilding and development studies are geared toward intentional social change around issues of conflict, poverty, inequality, sustainability and social justice.

The new major offers students the chance to combine the theory of justice and conflict studies with the practice of peacebuilding and sustainable development in communities far and wide.

“Peacebuilding and development go hand in hand,” says professor Gloria Rhodes, who will be leading the classes along with fellow prof Terry Jantzi. Learn more…

Environmental sustainability

Rhodes and Jantzi will also work closely with the biology department to offer a new major focusing on forward-thinking sustainability practices.

Students who major in environmental sustainability will choose between two tracks of study:

• the traditional environmental science track with courses from the disciplines of ecology, chemistry and physiology
• the new environmental and social sustainability focus, which combines traditional environmental science coursework with revised applied sociology courses emphasizing international and community development and conservation.

“Traditional” environmental science courses, offered by biology professors Dr. James A. (Jim) Yoder and Dr. Douglas Graber Neufeld, have been revised and augmented over recent years with hard looks at local and global sustainability and hands-on research projects. Learn more…

Christian Peacemaker Team worker Tom Fox was eulogized in an on-campus memorial service Wednesday evening, Mar. 15, as an example of active love and nonviolence in a place of protracted conflict.

At the same time, the one-hour service celebrated the thousands of others who are working on behalf of peace around the world and remembering those who continue to suffer as a result of violence everywhere.

More than 300 students, faculty, staff and community persons gathered in Lehman Auditorium to remember Fox and others who have put their lives on the line for the cause of peace in Iraq and other countries.

Human Rights Worker

Fox, 54, was a (CPT) member investigating human rights violations, helping ordinary Iraqi people rebuild their shattered lives and telling the truth to U.S. citizens about the horrors of war. He was taken hostage on Nov. 26, 2005, along with three fellow CPT colleagues, by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

Fox’s body was found by Iraqi police in western Baghdad on Mar. 9, 2006, with evidence of having been tortured before being shot. The status of the other CPT hostages remains uncertain.

The service opened with a candlelight processional by current students in 91����Ƶ’s (CJP) program and a welcome from 91����Ƶ President Loren Swartzendruber.

Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music at 91����Ƶ, led the audience and the 91����Ƶ Chamber Singers in music, including “O Healing River,” “If the War Goes On,” “God of Grace and God of Glory” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Peace Mission in Iraq

Fox, from Clearbrook, Va., took one semester of graduate work in 91����Ƶ’s graduate-level Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, studying “strategic nonviolence” with Lisa Schirch, associate professor of conflict studies, to prepare himself for returning to his peace mission in Iraq. Schirch visited Fox in Iraq last summer and stayed in close touch with him through e-mails.

Dr. Schirch offered sample readings from Fox’s communications while a series of photos were projected on a screen of the CPT worker’s activities in the Middle East.

“Tom was my student,” Schirch said. “He was dedicated to praying for and working for peace. He wanted to tell the world what was happening in Iraq. He would want us to plead to God today to send down healing waters and wash the blood off of the sand.

“Tom would want us to continue our fervent prayers for the remaining CPT hostages James Loney, Harmet Sooden and Norman Kember, for journalist Jill Carroll, for the Iraqi people who have suffered so much and for the U.S. soldiers who are our neighbors from here in the U.S.,” she said.

Memorial Fund

Guest books were made available for audience members to sign and offer personal reflections and condolences. These will be forwarded to Fox’s CTP colleagues, who will in turn convey them to Fox’s two college-aged children.

A Tom Fox Memorial Fund for CJP has been established to support the continuation of Fox’s work through the training of additional persons in peacebuilding, nonviolent action and advocacy for social justice.

More information is available by contacting Bonnie Price Lofton, CJP director of development, at 540-432-4234; e-mail: Bonnie.Lofton@emu.edu.

John Paul Lederach