Several 91����Ƶ faculty and alumni have contributed to a new resource published by MennoMedia. Covering subjects from faith formation to sustaining leaders, have resonated with Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada pastors wrestling with deep and difficult issues amid the lingering pandemic.

The content covers six subjects: faith formation, worship, sustaining Leaders, community engagement, navigating polarization, and connection.

With more than 2000 downloads to date, the content has clearly filled a need in the church.

“We were able to determine that more than two-thirds of pastors in Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada signed up to receive these resources,” said Joe Hackman MDiv ’11, director of development and partner engagement.

Among the contributors are several 91����Ƶ faculty:

• David Brubaker, dean of 91����Ƶ’s School of Social Sciences and Professions; 
• Jayne Seminare Docherty, executive director of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding; 
• Cheree Hammond, professor in the graduate counseling program; and 
• Sarah Ann Bixler, associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Alumni include Hendy Matahelemual MA ‘19 (Christian leadership); Nelson Okanya ‘02; Jane Hoober Peifer ‘75, MDiv ‘98; and Martin Rhodes ‘02. Former faculty member Lisa Schirch, now with the Kroc Institute at University of Notre Dame, also contributed.

MennoMedia received a Schowalter Foundation grant in May 2021 to help churches thrive after COVID-19. MennoMedia used the funds to develop the “What Now?” podcast series and downloadable resources distributed to an opt-in email list and housed on the MennoMedia website.

“What Now?” resources were released in three installments in August, September, and October . The full set of resources are available for download at MennoMedia.org and the What Now? podcast episodes are hosted on the “-ing” podcast.

91����Ƶ announces a new partnership with the Peace Corps Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program. The program offers financial assistance and internships to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who intend to continue their dedication to community service while pursuing a master’s degree in conflict transformation or restorative justice at 91����Ƶ’s .

“The Coverdell Fellows Program and CJP were animated by similar commitments to service in the interests of building peace,” said Jayne Docherty, CJP’s executive director. “The Coverdell Program supports former Peace Corps Volunteers who want to continue lives of service. CJP was created by Mennonite Central Committee peace and justice leaders to support and educate others who wanted to dedicate their lives to promoting peace grounded in justice. We are delighted to welcome Coverdell Fellows into our global network of peacebuilders.”

The partnership requires that Coverdell Fellows complete substantive internships related to their program of study in underserved communities in the United States. This application-based learning encourages them to bring home and expand upon the skills they learned as volunteers. 

Mentored internships are a unique feature of CJP’s practice-based curricula and placing RPCVs into the regional community in these settings brings a host of reciprocal benefits, said Amy Knorr, CJP’s peacebuilding practice director.

“This particular group of students will bring the skills and competencies gained during their Peace Corps experience to their work with local organizations,” Knorr said. “These skills in adapting to new cultures, developing and managing projects, dealing with language barriers, and leveraging limited resources are very much needed in our own community. We are delighted to welcome these returned Volunteers as they will continue the legacy of CJP involvement and commitment to our local community.”

 Fellows will work with organizations such as Our Community Place, Church World Service Refugee Resettlement, and others, Knorr said. 

Read more about CJP graduate students and their practica opportunities from 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The Peace Corps created the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program in 1985. The first Fellows program was at Teachers College, Columbia University and the Peace Corps now partners with more than 213 institutions of higher education across the country.

“Thirty-five years and more than 5,000 participants later, Coverdell Fellows programs at schools across the United States continue to provide returned Volunteers affordable access to graduate education, while also creating amazing opportunities to apply the knowledge and skills they’ve garnered during service toward improving local communities,” said Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen. “These are incredibly meaningful avenues for returned Volunteers to continue serving in the spirit of the Peace Corps.”

10/4/2021

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at 91����Ƶ 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, CJP’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 91����Ƶ 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 91����Ƶ. 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 CJP’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 91����Ƶ, 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 91����Ƶ 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 91����Ƶ 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. 

The event was originally planned for summer 2020, but cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The format switched to all virtual once it became clear not only travel for guests but also on-campus hosting would be challenging. The 2021 Summer Peacebuilding Institute, which runs concurrently, is also online for the second consecutive year.

Such a delay doesn’t dampen the festivities. Like the program itself, which has adapted successfully to new constraints and socio-political developments, the celebration’s virtual format has expanded its reach.

Registered guests will receive access to links for sessions in their emailed receipt. They will also have access to recorded sessions after the weekend.

With more than 700 alumni in 78 countries, including the 25 recent graduates from CJP’s Class of 2021, CJP’s network is worldwide. That includes an estimated 5,500 (STAR) program participants and 3,700 participants. CJP also hosts the , which has brought many to CJP through their interest in restorative justice.

The event features 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. Executive Director Jayne Docherty gives an interactive address in which she discusses recent changes at CJP and invites audience members to join in the visioning work.

The keynote speaker is Alicia Garza, currently the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance and principal with the Black Futures Lab. She is also the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. Read more about Garza here. 

Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement Alicia Garza will speak at 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) 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 .

On Tuesday evening, just a short time after the verdict was announced, I sent a message  to our campus community. I named the value of a cathartic, collective exhale on the swift verdict, and our shared witness around a faith-informed justice on the occasion of this historic moment. Indeed, the trial was a long-awaited step towards repair in our country’s long and awful legacy of racialized violence. 

I also expressed support of deep listening and bold collaborative action: We especially surround our BIPOC students, faculty and staff tonight with care and compassion. We commit ourselves to continuing to hear their voices, to stand with them, and to do the hard and necessary work to extend the movement to expand racial justice and equity in our nation, our community, and on our own campus. We will work together to make our community of learners more and more fair and equitable inside and outside the classroom. 

The Black Lives Matter movement has taught me many things. Saying the names of our black citizens senselessly killed or injured at a shockingly disproportionate rate at the hands of law enforcement is a powerful reminder of my own white privilege. And so again I say his name: George Perry Floyd Junior, to remind myself this is not an ending at all.

As educators, we still have much work to do. Here is a brief summary of some tangible steps our university has taken recently on issues of racial and social justice, with special attention to diversity, equity and inclusion at all levels of our community of learning:

• Diversity objectives are featured in the President’s Annual Report and 91����Ƶ’s 2020-25 Strategic Plan.
• A new fund to support DEI training and related initiatives benefited from nearly $93,763 in current and pledged donor support this spring.
•  91����Ƶ’s Board of Trustees is led by Manuel A. Nuñez, professor and faculty director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Villanova Business School. The board remains deeply committed in specific ways to diversity, equity and inclusion outcomes in learning objectives, campus climate, and representation.  
• More than 10 newly established endowed scholarships and direct grants to increase access and opportunities for BIPOC undergraduate and graduate students have been cultivated just this year.
• We continue supporting, building relationships, listening to and learning from leaders of our student organizations, including Black Student Alliance, Latino Student Alliance, International Student Organization, SafeSpace, and the newly established Asian Pacific Islander Student Association.

And finally, we are delighted with an important addition to our team: Dr. Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán. She started as our executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion just a few weeks ago, and has already made connections with our Committee for Diversity and Inclusion, and among our student groups and their leaders. We look forward to her leadership as we make our actions toward racial and social justice more concrete. 

Below, Dr. Font-Guzmán shares a short reflection on the verdict. Continue on to read reflections from our student leaders, and leaders of Eastern Mennonite Seminary and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. 

No one person can enact the kind of dramatic change our schools, communities, and country needs. We must listen together and lead together. Each member of our university has a contribution to make. We welcome your support and your prayers on the journey ahead.

From Dr. Jacqueline N. Font-Guzmán, executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion

The murder conviction in the case of Mr. George Perry Floyd Jr. has been unprecedented in many ways. It is a rare event in the history of the United States that a White policeman is found guilty of murdering a Black man. 

At the personal level, I have mixed feelings about the verdict. Although I felt encouraged by it because it held the perpetrator accountable, justice did not triumph. True justice requires giving each person their due. Mr. Floyd should be alive today. 

And yet, I do not despair. I am hopeful that this verdict can move us to take the needed crucial steps towards transforming – and when necessary – dismantling the systems that allow for this violence to continue. There is no better act of subversion than building relationships and communities. This verdict was possible thanks to all the organizers, peaceful protesters, students, and people willing to – as John Lewis said– “Get in trouble, good trouble.”

Here at 91����Ƶ, we are committed to peace, social justice, and community. We will continue to work together with love and compassion to create an environment where everyone can be their true selves, belong, and be safe. 

A joint statement from two leaders of the Student Government and Black Student Alliance

Ma’Khia could have been any of us. In the span of two hours, our collective conversation had shifted from a tense relief that Derek Chauvin had been found guilty in the murder of George Floyd, to the overwhelming grief and anger that we know so intimately. 

After George Floyd’s murder this summer, the Student Government Association sent an email affirming protests and demonstrations being carried out in the name of justice. We also named that many of our clubs that serve as affinity groups for marginalized voices unfairly bear the burden of providing programming aimed at educating our broader campus community. Weeks later, the Black Student Alliance presented a list of demands, calling our campus community to live more fully into our self-proclaimed values of justice and peace. 

Now, after the verdict has been read, we as student leaders continue to commit ourselves to standing alongside those who fiercely speak truth to power, uprooting systems which cause harm, including those within our university. We will rage until LGBTQ+ communities feel safe, until ICE is abolished and the prison industrial complex is destroyed, until families are no longer torn apart on the border, and the ongoing Indigenous genocide is stopped.

We know that there is much work to be done. We envision a community that rejects notions of scarcity,  where justice is abundant and freedom is genuine. This is a vision that 91����Ƶ says it shares, and so we call 91����Ƶ to answer, to act: 

To create and hold spaces for BIPOC students, faculty and staff. To offer tangible support through meals and offer extensions on deadlines. To compensate the unpaid labor of those who have consistently borne the brunt of liberation work within 91����Ƶ. To show up for your students in the classroom, at our events, in this nation and this world. Show up for your marginalized  students in the ways we’ve been asking of you. This is how we live into our mission. 

Anisa Leonard, co-president of Student Government Association; Maya Dula, secretary and past co-president of Black Student Alliance

Eastern Mennonite Seminary

In the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, we believe that the mutual flourishing of relationships is essential for faith. We belong to one another as members of the human family. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the body of Christ, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). When one person, family and community suffers injustice, the harm impacts us all. 

A verdict from our national justice system may provide some clarity, but that alone cannot restore human dignity and wholeness. We commit fully and collectively to this restorative work: to practicing justice in compassionate relationships as a learning community and in the communities in which we participate throughout the world.

Learning how, within our own faith communities and our university community, we can truly resist the systemic racism made so visible in this moment impels us to deeper prayer and richer action. We thank God for leaders in many communities of color in the United States, and some of our own community members, who have long modeled the discipleship of work for justice.

Dr. Sue Cockley, dean; Dr. Nancy Heisey, associate dean; Rev. Dr. Sarah Bixler, incoming associate dean.

The Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

The United States was built on a mixed message – all men are created equal and only white men who own property count as full citizens. The territory of the United States was created through displacement, genocide, and war against indigenous peoples and a neighboring country, Mexico. Wealth was amassed by white men who exploited enslaved peoples from Africa and violently suppressed attempts to organize for labor rights. As a country, we have struggled with these tensions since our founding. Our history cannot be ignored in our move toward a different future.

Rooting out and transforming the original sin built into the United States is a long, hard, slow process and once again we are being challenged. Do we settle for order masquerading as peace or do we demand justice that supports authentic peace, healing, and equity? As the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, we have answered that question. Now, we must actualize it in our current context. As a predominantly white institution, this work is deeply personal for each of us and for CJP and 91����Ƶ as organizations. Thankfully, the jury in Minnesota has held Derek Chauvin accountable for his actions. Let us continue our work to grow justice with humility and integrity. That means listening to and following leaders who have experienced the violence and injustices of our current systems.  

Dr. Jayne Docherty, executive director

91����Ƶ’s has joined 23 organizations in Staunton, Augusta County, Waynesboro, Harrisonburg, and Rockingham County to formally state their opposition to the proposed Middle River Regional Jail expansion.

The coalition was facilitated by the organization (and on ).

CJP Executive Director Jayne Docherty is among several area representatives quoted in the release. CJP graduate student Corey Chandler, a member of Virginia Organizing, is also quoted. 

“Show me your checkbook and I will tell you your values. We need to rebalance our investments,” Docherty says. “We need to say no to expanding the jail. We need to say yes to investing in the well-being of our neighbors and family members. We need to divert funding to mental health services, crime prevention programs, and substance abuse treatment options.”

The jail serves five member jurisdictions, which would split the costs of the . The plan would add 352 beds; expand the facility’s mental health services and community corrections housing for those on work release; and include renovations to the laundry, food and water service units. 

The Middle River Jail Authority Board will meet today [April 6] to vote on the plan. [] Virginia Organizing hosted a drive-through protest rally yesterday evening at the jail.

The press release was accompanied by listing the top concerns related to the expansion, including the number of inmates at Middle River who have not yet gone to trial; the rates of recidivism, mental illness, and substance use disorder among jail inmates; and the disproportionate incarceration of Black people there.

“Investing in our community means equitable access to housing, education, and employment,” said Chandler, who was formerly incarcerated at Middle River. “Investing in our communities means empowering our neighbors to be their best selves. Investing in our community is not creating more bed space in an already overcrowded jail whose only priority is to fill those beds.”

The organizations in opposition include:

– Allen Chapel AME Church, Staunton;

– Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at 91����Ƶ, Harrisonburg;

– Community Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg;

– Eye on Augusta;

– Faith in Action, Harrisonburg/Rockingham;

– Forward Staunton;

– FUEGO Coalition, Harrisonburg;

-Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists;

– Immanuel Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg;

– John Wesley UMC, Harrisonburg;

– Justice for Prisoners, Waynesboro;

– Libertarian Party of Staunton;

– NAACP Harrisonburg-Rockingham;

– NAACP Staunton;

– Port Republic Road Historical and Community Association, Waynesboro;

– RISE, Waynesboro;

– Rockingham County Democratic Committee;

– Silver Run Forest Farm, Harrisonburg;

– Staunton Democratic Committee;

– Staunton Equity Coalition;

– Staunton Organizing;

– Valley Justice Coalition, Harrisonburg/Rockingham;

– Virginia Organizing, Harrisonburg/Rockingham;

– Waynesboro Democratic Committee.

The “Peacebuilder” podcast, hosted by Patience Kamau MA ‘17, releases the second episode of its second season today. Kamau’s guest is Professor Catherine Barnes, who teaches strategic peacebuilding and public policy at 91����Ƶ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

The “Peacebuilder” podcast, in its second season, is a production of 91����Ƶ’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.

In the podcast, Barnes and Kamau chat about Barnes’ expertise in designing and facilitating deliberative dialogue processes, as well as current events including the military coup in Myanmar.

“Dr. Catherine Barnes has worked for conflict transformation and social change for more than 30 years,” Kamau says by way of introduction. “In many countries, she has worked with civil society, activists, diplomats and politicians, and armed groups to build their capacities for preventing violence and using conflict as an opportunity for addressing the systems giving rise to oppression and grievance.”

Their conversation begins with a deep dive into deliberative dialogue: what it is, when it’s useful, and what it has the power to do for a community struggling with conflict.

“The dialogue is very much about setting the conversation in this connection point – at a human level – between those who are involved and the perspectives that they have to bring. So that particularly if there’s been tension, conflict, or even indeed oppression, that you have this humanization of relationships,” Barnes explained. 

One of the early experiences that led Barnes towards this field of work was growing up in the Quaker Universalist tradition, in which congregants gather in silence “and seek the light of God moving within,” she said. They “have … this understanding that often in those spaces, there may be someone who feels moved to share something.”

Barnes went on to earn her doctorate in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University alongside Jayne Docherty, Barry Hart, and Lisa Schirch. She’s done conflict transformation work all over the world – including training deliberative dialogue process designers and facilitators in Myanmar. 

91����Ƶ the current violence in the country, Barnes said she feels “so heartbroken. I feel scared, scared for people who I have come to know and respect and, indeed, to love … I think it really does reveal in many ways how the zero sum nature of a power paradigm based on unilateral control and coercion is so hard to shift.”

“Are there resilience tools that you think are within the community that might help carry them through this?” Kamau asked.

“I always, always have hope,” Barnes replied. “I often will say that it’s actually, it’s within movements that you almost need these skills even more to try to think about, ‘how do we generate something that will be different in nature, different in kind than the old system that had been oppressive?'”

After a decade of service at 91����Ƶ 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).��

For a more streamlined read, note the following:

–links to each CJP program are omitted. To learn more about the specific programs named here, please visit the .

— a faculty or staff member’s title is listed once, on first reference. To learn more about individual faculty and staff members, visit the .

Our alumni are accomplished people and a wonderful resource, which is why we include a link to each personal profile on the . This information is provided and updated voluntarily.

September 2019

• A class of 22 new graduate students begin their first semester of studies.
• The new graduate students participate in CJP’s Grounding Day: an opportunity to begin to ground students in the history and current social, political, economic and environmental justice realities in Harrisonburg.
• Fidele Ayu Lumeya MA ’00 returns to the Democratic Republic of Congo to direct the Congo Ubuntu Peacebuilding Center.
• Talibah Aquil MA ’19 performs “Ghana, remember me…,” a multimedia production that sprung from her 2019 travels in Ghana as part of her capstone project on the themes of identity, race, trauma and healing.
• Twenty-one participants join STAR 1 on campus with Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield and Ayman Kerols MA ’16.

October 2019

• CJP’s 25th anniversary year kicks off with a “TenTalks” event at 91����Ƶ’s Homecoming and Family Weekend featuring Tammy Krause MA ‘99, Darsheel Kaur MA ‘17, and John E. Sharp, father of Michael J. Sharp ’05.
• Donna Minter, founder and executive director of the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute and STAR Trainer, is honored with the Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence.
• Professor Johonna Turner, co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, gives the keynote address at a symposium on restorative justice hosted by the University of Richmond Public Interest Law Review. Attorney Brenda Waugh MA ’09 provides a talk on restorative lawyering and Suzanne Praill MA ’10, director of restorative justice at the Fairfield Center, contributes to a panel discussion.
• In collaboration with , CJP hosts Community Criminal Justice Days conference, bringing together community stakeholders for discussions and planning around reducing incarceration and recidivism in the local area.
• Howard Zehr, distinguished professor of restorative justice, is the featured speaker at the 2019 Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Lecture at George Mason University.

November 2019

• CJP co-sponsors a conference in Mexico City on the intersection of gender and peacebuilding: “Construcción de Paz con Perspectiva de Género” at the University Iberoamericana, a Jesuit-affiliated institution. Alena Yoder, CJP’s program development associate, was a panel moderator. Vernon Jantzi, emeritus professor, and Jayne Docherty, CJP executive director, presented papers. 
• STAR trainers facilitate a workshop for the Grand Canyon National Park’s Public Lands for all Inclusion Summit to explore principles of restorative justice, trauma awareness, resilience, and truth and reconciliation and how those principles might be applied in the organizations and the workplaces. Read about STAR’s ongoing relationship with the National Park Service.
• Kajungu Mturi MA ‘18 facilitates a day of trauma and resilience training for 91����Ƶ’s Intensive English Program staff and instructors.
• Gilberto Pérez Jr. ’94 GC ’99, vice president for student life at Goshen College, wins his bid for a city council seat in Goshen, Indiana. He will be the first Latino council member in a city that is 33-34% Latino.
• A Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice features multiple speakers on engaging communities of faith in promoting restorative justice, along with specific avenues and resources for collaborating with Catholic parishes and ministries.
• Eighteen people participate in STAR 2 with Katie Mansfield and Lisa Collins.

December 2019

• Katie Mansfield and Jon Swartz MA ‘14 facilitate three days of STAR-based training for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution, including Sigal Shoham MA ’13.
• 91����Ƶ recognizes Dawn Curtis-Thames MA ’20 and David Nyiringabo MA ’20, then second-year CJP students,  for their outstanding contributions to CJP and the larger university community. Read about their practicum studies.

January 2020

• Wayne Marriott MA ’18, a conflict coach and mediator based in Christchurch, New Zealand, receives the Resolution Institute’s 2019 Michael Klug Award for his support to the local community after the mosque shootings there last year.
• The 10-episode Peacebuilder podcast launches, featuring faculty and staff members reflecting on the program’s history and their own peacebuilding work.
• Twenty-two people, including 11 CJP MA students, participate in STAR 1 on campus with Katie Mansfield and Johonna Turner.

February 2020

• The fifth annual SPI Community Day welcomes about 100 participants to get a taste of Summer Peacebuilding Institute classes and hear from speakers on racial justice, including Chief Kenneth Branham of the Monacan nation and Frank Dukes, a professor at the University of Virginia.
• Professor Emeritus Barry Hart is the keynote speaker at a seminar organized by Initiatives of Change Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, discussing the role restorative justice could play in restoring and healing wounded people to create a more just society.
• The Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice hosts a webinar on Equal Justice USA’s approach to the relationship between community and police in Newark, N.J., and how trauma-informed responses to violence that are community-driven can reduce harm for those most vulnerable and marginalized.
• Ten people join Kajungu Mturi MA ‘18 and Katie Mansfield at a STAR 1 training on campus.
• Katie Mansfield presents on a panel titled “Healing and Resilience: Taking a trauma-informed approach to delivering assistance” sponsored by the Peace and Security Workgroup of the Society for International Development-Washington Chapter. 

March 2020

• CJP staff and faculty start working remotely and moving academic classes online due to COVID-19.
• STAR provides three days of training for the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
• The 25th Anniversary Celebration, planned for the summer, is postponed for a year. The new dates are June 4-6, 2021. Alicia Garza, John Paul Lederach and sujatha baliga are among the scheduled speakers who plan to attend.
• Katie Mansfield launches the virtual community Dancing Resilience, through which participants all over the world meet via video conference multiple times a day to dance together. 
• The Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice hosts a virtual book launch for (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020), by Lindsey Pointer, Kathleen McGoey, and Haley Farrar.

April 2020

• SPI announces its move to an all-online format.
• Donors help to meet two $35,000 matching grants set up by two couples and gave generously during Lov91����Ƶ Day in honor of CJP’s 25th anniversary.
• Cole Parke MA ’12 and Emmanuel Bombande MA ’02 are named as 2020 Peacebuilder of the Year honorees.
• STAR releases the Care “Together” video series: conversations between Katie Mansfield, STAR trainers and practitioners. 

May 2020

• SPI 2020 marks the 26th year of gathering peacebuilders for mutual learning and support – online this year using video conferencing and other digital tools. Eleven courses are offered to more than 180 people across 60% of the world’s time zones. Read general news coverage here, and more specific articles about creating community online and the digital peacebuilding class.                       
• Sixteen CJP graduates representing nine countries receive their degrees. 
• Johonna Turner is one of the three faculty presented with 91����Ƶ’s annual Excellence in Teaching Awards.
• Christine Kindler MA ’17 receives the Berlin Fellowship from Humanity in Action.
• The new Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership is launched earlier than expected as CJP moves online. The degree with online, hybrid and residential options for working professionals includes courses in business and leadership and will continue to add courses from other programs at 91����Ƶ as electives.

June 2020

• SkyHorse Publishing releases a new edition of Carolyn Yoder‘s Little Book of Trauma Healing.
• STAR provides a webinar for Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency’s Service Coordinators and Case Managers on trauma and resilience.

July 2020

• STAR trains campus ministry professionals at the National Association of Campus Ministers virtual conference.
• An advisory group of STAR trainers and practitioners work with Katie Mansfield to recreate STAR for online delivery. The group includes Donna Minter, Crixell Shell, Ram Bhagat GC ’19, Lisa Collins, Meenakshi Chhabra, and Johonna Turner. Elaine Zook Barge MA ’03, Vernon Jantzi, and Carolyn Yoder provide additional input and insight.
• STAR announces registration for STAR online.
• Johonna Turner contributes a chapter to Colorizing Restorative Justice: Voicing Our Realities (Living Justice Press, 2020), a collection of 18 essays penned by practitioners and scholars of color.

August  2020

• STAR wraps up four webinars for National Park Service staff.
• CJP welcomes 30 new students for orientation. This includes nine students in the new MA in Transformational Leadership program, with online, hybrid and residential options.
• Planning continues for the CJP “25+1” anniversary celebration.

A digital collection of writings by humanitarian and armed conflict researcher Larry Minear and his colleagues now resides with the 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) library. The works include 15 books and various studies, trip reports, and thematic reviews on conflicts and aid work in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The choice of 91����Ƶ to house the collection of work by Minear and colleagues, the author explains, “seems apt given the enduring interest of Mennonites in factors, both local and beyond, that make for peace.”

Scholars and practitioners looking into “the convergence between peace and security and humanitarian assistance” will take particular interest in the collection, Minear said. 

The collection is a work in progress and additional materials will be added as they become available or as copyright permissions are granted, said Marci Frederick, director of libraries at 91����Ƶ.

Jayne Docherty, executive director of the at 91����Ƶ, praised Minear as a pioneer of seeing “many ways of responding to human needs as a part of what must be done to build positive peace, not just put an end to overt violence.”

“The way he and his colleagues connected humanitarian action and peacebuilding, the way he modeled the values of the work, and the hard-to-find archives from people who were ‘in the room where it happened’ for some interesting times” make this collection particularly valuable, Docherty said.

The collection also features a number of reports by the Humanitarianism & War Project, an independent policy research initiative based first at Brown University and then Tufts University. The value of the Sudan report for aid officials led to a request from the agencies for additional country reviews.

For this initiative, Minear and colleagues traveled to Africa to study Operation Lifeline Sudan in 1989 – an undertaking by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations to bring aid to the war- and drought-besieged country. 

“Operation Lifeline Sudan is a story of a massive effort, led by the UN but building on and expanding the work of others, to provide aid to people under siege,” Minear wrote in 1990, in the foreword to Humanitarianism under siege: a critical review of Operation Lifeline Sudan. He continues,

The challenge was to reach more than two million people throughout the southern Sudan … Lifeline is also a story of the aid itself and of those providing it coming under siege as the warring parties threw up obstacles to reaching those in need. Difficulties notwithstanding, Lifeline succeeded in helping avoid widespread starvation and displacement in 1989.

Minear operated out of Nairobi, Kenya, during this research. It was there that he forged working relationships with colleagues associated with the peace churches. Thirty years later, Minear said that as he was looking for a home for the work that was accomplished, “it seemed only logical that we would build on what we had already done in the region.”

Minear was first drawn to this field from working as a teacher in suburban Chicago in the late 1960s, while the Nigerian Civil War raged on. His students prepared presentations on the conflict, and Minear then led them in charity drives – collecting school supplies and other necessities for Nigerian families. 

“This then became an ongoing activity for me at the school,” Minear explained, “which I then carried forward in my professional life. Different conflicts, different settings, different techniques, but basically the same issue emerged: How do you protect humanitarian values in settings where warfare is taking its toll?”

The collection includes research on other crises that were studied by the project:

• Conflicts in Afghanistan, Burundi, Colombia, Liberia, Northern Uganda, and The Sudan in the early to mid-2000s, which are analyzed in a 2015 report for the Feinstein International Center,
• The United States’ Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the impacts on U.S. veterans, as told in a report for the Feinstein International Center and a collection of personal narratives titled Through Veterans’ Eyes: the Iraq and Afghanistan Experience.
• Famine in sub-Saharan Africa, refugee crises such as that of the Afghans in Pakistan, various conflicts in Lebanon and the Middle East, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and other Central American conflicts of the 1980s, as discussed in the book (Interaction, 1988).
• Military personnel sent to the aid of civilian populations during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, published in the study Soldiers to the Rescue: Humanitarian Lessons from Rwanda. 

Parallel to these country studies, Minear did his own reflections to pursue issues in greater detail.

Researchers and aid practitioners will have “grist for their mills to elaborate on the earlier experiences,” said Minear.

The tenth and final installment of the Peacebuilder podcast’s first season features Jayne Docherty, executive director of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) at 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ). Docherty speaks on her path to the field, the importance of considering worldviews in a conflict, and how the program has grown and changed since she joined as the first non-Mennonite faculty member, shortly before 9/11.

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.

The concept of worldview is a keystone in Docherty’s stories. It shaped how she interpreted the fiasco at Waco, Texas between the Branch Davidians and the FBI, which she wrote her dissertation on while a doctoral student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. It’s also the reason she chose to teach at 91����Ƶ – “it’s the only place nobody asked me what I meant by worldview,” she says.

But she prefers “the word ‘world viewing’ better, because it’s an activity that we engage in all day long.”

Docherty went on to publish a book based on her dissertation: Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring their Gods to the Negotiation Table. That research taught her a lot about mediation and negotiation in a situation where two groups have a “toxic combination” of shared and different assumptions of the world.

“When the worldview differences are really, really deep, you can’t convince the other party to do anything. All you can do is construct a space in which they can convince themselves,” she explains. “Every worldview is a way of seeing, but it’s also a way of not seeing. So what are you not seeing?” Acknowledging your own and others’ ways of world viewing makes team-based conflict analysis all the more important, Docherty says. That way you can cover for one anothers’ blind spots.

Docherty had to navigate some differences in worldviews when she came to the then-Conflict Transformation Program as an Italian Catholic whose father was a career Air Force officer. 

“At CJP, coming in as a cultural outsider, I was literally the first non-Mennonite hired into the faculty for this program,” she says. Even so, she’s found an “authentic care for one another. I think that’s what we have. I think that’s what we strive for here.”

Her hopes for CJP in another 25 years? That the program is recognized, not just internationally, but also in its own figurative and literal backyard as “a really dynamic organizing location for peace, justice, and nonviolence, and doing work in a trauma-informed way.” 

We already have a strong network of graduates doing good work in the field, Docherty says, but it’s somewhat of a “latent network. And our job right now is to try to plug that in.” 

This was neither the end of the semester we anticipated nor the graduation we expected, but it is the semester we have completed and the graduation we celebrate, said Dean David Brubaker this past weekend to a virtual celebration for graduates from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Those words encapsulate the whirlwind experience of the last nine weeks, as our semester was completely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was not the semester we anticipated, but it was the semester we completed.

And what choice did we have but to persevere, adapt, be flexible and patient, flatten one curve as we were being slung faster on an accompanying learning curve of what exactly to do with ourselves, our bodies and minds in this strange new world.

The following collection of photos and text is a snapshot of the semester, collected in real time and revisited now, for those of you who are more peripheral to 91����Ƶ. It might help to give a sense of how faculty, staff and students responded in and out of classroom — in true 91����Ƶ fashion, with resilience, empathy and commitment.

Here we go (online)!

Some of the first on campus to sense an impending switch were employees in Information Systems. They began thinking about remote learning during 91����Ƶ’s spring break the first week in March, and in anticipation, beefed up their HelpZone articles on a variety of relevant topics.

By March 12, when 91����Ƶ announced a move to online learning, IS had reviewed and increased capacity of all systems and equipment (including webcams, laptops and Chromebooks) necessary for online teaching and campus operations. Needless to say, they were busy.

Two graphs from Jenni Piper, director of User Services, tell the story:

First Helpdesk Tickets. The green line shows last year’s demand and the blue line this year’s.

And second, the number of daily Zoom meetings hosted through the campus account, beginning in early March.

After hosting a training for faculty March 13 and the shift to online the classes the next week, IS handled 64 tickets on March 16, something of a watermark that shows when faculty and staff began to engage with the reality of a move to remote work.

Pedagogues thinking positively

91����Ƶ 10 days into the online shift, I asked a few professors how things were going. Some of their answers are included below. I was particularly struck by the positive perspective of veteran educator Carolyn Stauffer, professor of applied social sciences:

In reality, what we’re experiencing now is the presence of hybrid education. We’ve had the chance to meet in-person for the first part of the semester and now I get to know each participant’s online presence as well. It’s wonderful to be able to build on the assets of both sides of that equation!

Solo field trips

Professor Doug Graber Neufeld‘s “Natural History of the Shenandoah Valley” course syllabus was packed full of fantastic field trips to local natural wonders and lab experiences (like taxidermy practice below).

With his students scattered in mid-March, the field trips turned into independent explorations, such as Katelyn Dean‘s below. Here she holds morel mushrooms she and her dad found in the George Washington National Forest, just one find shared during class time.

“It’s the highlight of my day to hear students who daily recount the joy they find in now recognizing the animals, plants and rocks around them,” Neufeld said. “In such unusual times, experiencing the beauty and complexity of the natural world together has been a unique source of hope for us.” Read more about this class.

Conversations continue

In Professor Marti Eads’ class “Ways of War and Peace,” students met virtually with Reverend Masayuki Sawa, the pastor of a Reformed (Calvinist) congregation in Japan. He spoke of his perception of contemporary Japanese attitudes toward World War II and Japanese perceptions of the US and our own military actions, then and now, among other topics.

The class was slated to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Instead, guest speaker Gillian Steinberg, an educator at the Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy in the Bronx, and her students from the Modern Orthodox Jewish tradition met online with 91����Ƶ students.

This conversation and the de-brief afterwards held richness and nuance, Eads said, with several classmates opening up about their own religious experiences, choices and identities. Recognizing the common humanity, despite labels — “just the idea of all of us sitting together talking and all of us from different groups” was a moving experience, said one of her students. []

Creating community with virtual high fives

Engineering professor Esther Tian (pictured above at top right) continued teaching synchronous classes, preferring the structure and the presence of students. “It is also good for students to see each other and talk to each other before class as they would in a classroom.

We do high fives, thumb-ups (and downs) during class, we find out new features of Zoom and use them right away. It has been fun. I also found that one-on-one and small group Zoom sessions were working really well in answering students’ questions as well as advising..”

Senior Collin Longenecker, visible below Tian in the photo above and also at right, was an embedded tutor with a first-year engineering course. Though initially he wasn’t sure how Zoom sessions would work, he adapted well: “The students pop in and out and they can share their screen with me. It is almost like I am in the engineering lab looking over their shoulder trying to help them troubleshoot the problem. I have been helping a few students that I had not helped before we went to online school which is cool.”

Read more about 91����Ƶ tutors at work during online classes.

The power of community to enhance learning was the top tip in a blog post titled ” by Dean (and chem prof) Tara Kishbaugh for fellow organic chemistry teachers using the same texbook. “Community Matters,” she began. Use the relationships that have already been built to help students continue asking questions and learning in small peer groups. And she reminded readers, you can still greet each student individually when they enter your Zoom classroom.

Tech fails/wins: ‘chipmunky’-ness and new relationships

Professor Mark Sawin teaches U.S. History 103, from World War I to the present, with a focus on “power and paradox.” Sawin tried to do a synchronous class on Zoom and “it rather hilariously and spectularly failed,” he reported.

“So, since then, I’ve been pre-recording all my lectures on Panopto so students can watch them asynchronously, and with that program, you can adjust my speed. At 1.5 speed, I start to get rather chipmunky… at .5 speed I sound like the television show ‘Drunk History.’ I’m not sure if that amuses students, but it certainly amuses me.”

With the lectures available at any time, he began using normal class time as an open forum where students could drop in and ask questions.

“I’ve had some wonderful 1-on-1 conversations with students that I would never have had in our normal class setting. In this sense, our ‘social distancing’ has actually provided some closeness that wasn’t there before, and for that I’m grateful,” Sawin said. “I’ve also been pleased and touched by the grace that students have extended to us as we struggle to move our classes online. And I believe we, too, are showing that grace, focusing on the learning objectives and the big important ideas, and allowing a lot of latitude when it comes to the many wifi issues, isolation stresses, and general quarantine chaos we’re all learning to live with.”

Grace and connection

That grace is something education professor Paul Yoder has also experienced. Students in his classes are pre-service teachers and as a pedagogical specialist himself, the shift to online classes provided ample room for discussions around topics related to the digital classroom.

He wrote: “The key word in my planning for weekly class sessions via Zoom has been connection. We have taken time for each of the 18 students to rate how they are doing on a scale of 1-10 and then share with the group. Last week I sent individual emails as a follow up to the few students who placed themselves on the low end of the scale. I have also been excited to hear from some of my advisees who have shared their affirmations of how professors are providing flexibility as needed.  Particularly as we recognize that not all of us have the same level of internet access, I know that living into an ethic of care is essential.”

Nancy Heisey, seminary dean, also used check-ins with her classes, which often included adult students who juggled many responsibiliities, including pastors working in ministry settings.

“We take time every period to share ‘how it’s going’ and encourage one another. Some students are struggling with a household where everyone is working on line in a crowded space—spouse tele-working, children trying to do homework, and seminary student worrying about class work and how to get a video service up for their congregation’s Sunday service.

“I’ve been amazed, though, at the depth of engagement—this morning, my New Testament students each did a creative rendering of a parable of Jesus. They were funny, sobering, and encouraging!”

Hearing some of those needs led seminary professor Sarah Bixler to host an April 1 online gathering that drew 32 pastors, including 22 alumni, from four denominations and eight states. This has led to a free online series for pastors. Check it out here.

A wider global market for CJP

Innovation happened quickly during the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s facilitation class, co-taught by Professor Catherine Barnes and Amy Knorr. Students usually practice skills they’ve learned in person by helping clients with a planned discussion, strategic visioning or group dialogue. With face-to-face options limited and practice still required, students moved online.

Above, one group produced an online strategic planning for Shenandoah Green, a local environmental group, including a circle process, a historical reflection using a digital timeline that folks could fill in, and a card sort, a way of getting ideas out into the open and then grouping them together. “Board members at Shenandoah Green were delighted,” said Knorr, who helps coordinate practice settings for CJP students.

In the midst of the pandemic, CJP also hosted several online gatherings for alumni to connect and share resources.

And significantly, center staff moved quickly to adapt the Summer Peacebuilding Institute to online classes, expedite a new hybrid graduate degree program in transformational leadership, and prepare upcoming semester classes for online delivery.

The massive disruption and accompanying move towards online learning and programs have created new opportunities, said Executive Director Jayne Docherty, especially in a previously untapped market of prospective participants who could not have afforded to travel or would not have been issued a visa in the current environment.

“In the face of the pandemic, many people are waking up to the fact that our societies have become more unequal and unjust and that we are teetering on the edge of violent confrontations between social subgroups. Some of those people are saying, ‘This can’t continue. This is just wrong. What can I do? I want to be part of the solution.’ By moving our programs online quickly, we have helped channel their energy and impulse to help others in ways that prevent violence and address injustices.”

’12 hours ahead of our students’

As daily reports arrived into faculty in-boxes about the closure of practicum and internship placements to students, the nursing department focused on making sure their seniors could graduate on time and join the fight against covid-19.

For one cohort, that meant three 12-hour shifts at a local hospital. For others, they logged clinical hours (and their supervising professor also took calls) at a special covid-19 public health hotline.

“The faculty were meeting hour to hour, staying 12 hours ahead of the students as we were making decisions,” said Professor Melody Cash.

Eventually, a waiver allowed faculty to substitute simulation hours for live clinicals and all 16 seniors finished out the semester in good standing, ready to join the workforce.

It’s the small things…

Marci Frederick (above), director of Sadie Hartzler Library, and Professor Kevin Seidel dressed in academic regalia in honor of their senior seminar students for their last Zoom class meeting.

Congratulations, 91����Ƶ family, on the end of the semester we did not anticipate.

We celebrate.

SPI Online 2020 is slated for a fully online delivery, and administrators are seeing a previously untapped market of prospective participants who could not have afforded to travel or would not have been issued a visa in the current environment.

“Since 9/11 it has gotten more and more difficult for those who want to join SPI to get visas. We are excited that so many will be able to join us this year. It is a good reminder that every crisis is also an opportunity if we can rethink our assumptions about how things must be done,” said, CJP executive director.

Much of the unique value of SPI, as longtime attendees know, is the opportunity to learn from peacebuilders from around the world within and outside of classes. SPI administrators are rising to the challenge of fostering connection and relationships, even in a technological format.

“It’s forced us to articulate our culture,” said Docherty. That means “opportunities for people to learn from each other, not just from the instructor,” as well as opportunities for reflection on how students will apply the teachings to their own peacebuilding practices. 

“This is engaged learning online,” Docherty said. 

Course offerings have changed somewhat in light of this new format – some will just be available for professional development, and some for academic credit. CJP has reduced the cost of both types of classes: $495 per professional development course and $656 per credit hour for academic credit courses.

The classes will all run simultaneously from May 11 to June 12, with a mix of live group sessions, small virtual gatherings, and videos and assignments to be completed solo. The technology support team will work with participants during the week of May 4 so everyone can join the classes smoothly and without any technology problems. 

CJP has hired instructional designer Sharon Tjaden-Glass to optimize the online experience. Classes will use a combination of platforms including Zoom for video conferences, Moodle for collating assignments, and VoiceThread, which allows students watching an online lecture or other media to pause, leave a video comment, and interact with one another’s videos.

The social component of SPI is vital to the program, Docherty said, like “all the conversations over coffee hour, or in the residence halls late at night, or in the dining hall.” One way they intend to foster this is through virtual group dances hosted by Katie Mansfield, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience trainer.

While retooling an experiential learning program with international attendees in just a matter of weeks has taken a lot of work, “this pushed us to live up to our values,” said Bill Goldberg, director of SPI. Cancelling was not an option.

“The reality is the world needs this, especially now. The world’s going to be changed after this pandemic. We all know that,” Goldberg said. “How do we deal with those who are traumatized? How do we deal with justice issues differently?”

For more information and to apply to the Summer Peacebuilding Institute Online 2020, click here. Course offerings are listed below.

For Professional development or academic credit

• Transforming Community Spaces through Equitable Collaboration
• Digital Peacebuilding and Peace Tech: Understanding Media, Conflict, and Online Violent Extremism
• Circle Processes

For professional development only

• Introduction to Restorative Justice
• Trauma, Resilience, and Healing in Times of the Pandemic
• Designing Processes for Conflict Transformation: Dialogue, Deliberation, and Decision-Making
• Conducting Organizational Assessments in Times of Conflict

For academic credit only

• Analysis: Understanding Conflict
• Formation for Peacebuilding Practice
• Transformational Leadership for Organizational Change
• Restorative Justice: Principles, Theories & Applications

91����Ƶ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) announces two Peacebuilder of the Year honorees: Emmanuel Bombande MA ‘02 and Cole Parke MA ‘12.

Bombande, a senior mediation adviser for the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, has spent his professional career devoted to building peace on the African continent. Parke, now with Carolina Jews for Justice of Durham, North Carolina, works to support faith communities in social justice efforts. 

The Peacebuilder of the Year award, given annually to a graduate of CJP who has shown exceptional commitment to peacebuilding work, was expanded this year in recognition of the center’s 25th anniversary. 

has been postponed to 2021. Bombande and Parke will be honored at the renamed “25+1” Celebration in June 2021. [The 2020 Summer Peacebuilding Institute continues on an all-online capacity.]

“These two honorees have done significant work in international and domestic advocacy around issues that are so important to peacebuilding and justice work,” said Jayne Docherty, CJP executive director. “Unfortunately, our celebration of their work and our invitation for them to further connect with students and alumni is on hold, but we look forward to more opportunities to connect in the next year while we wait to celebrate in 2021.”

Emmanuel Bombande

Bombande, now a senior mediation adviser for the UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, was one of the earliest students of CJP. Originally from Ghana, he co-founded the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding with fellow alum Sam Gbaydee Doe MA ‘98 in 1998. The organization initially focused on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention in West Africa, and started the West Africa Peacebuilding Institute in 2002, which is modeled after the Summer Peacebuilding Institute at CJP. 

Bombande went on to serve as chair of the board of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, Special Assistant to the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the United Nations for West Africa, the Deputy Foreign Minister, among other noteworthy positions.

Bombande is “an alumnus of our early years who has done significant work on peacebuilding in contexts of open violence,” Docherty said.

In his current position with the UN, Bombande has advised on establishing infrastructure for peace in African countries, particularly in Burkina Faso and Sudan.

“In all humility and with profound gratitude, I express heartwarming appreciation to the Center For Justice and Peacebuilding community for this recognition and award,” Bombande said. “In all my work and career, I have never stopped talking about the quality of education from 91����Ƶ which distinguishes alumni of CJP in the approach and commitment to the work of justice and peace. Your recognition makes me proud as it reinforces my joy of belonging to this community and to be rededicated to our service to humanity.”

Cole Parke

Parke is currently a community organizer for Carolina Jews for Justice, which supports Jewish communities to organize for righteous immigration policy, social justice, and other causes. 

My time at CJP did more than equip me with knowledge, tools, and skills,” they said. “CJP invited me into an incredible global network of people who devote themselves wholeheartedly to the belief that healing and liberation are truly possible. I’m honored to be a part of this amazing community, and I’m grateful to be recognized for my own small part in the ongoing transformation that we are collectively building.”

Parke has a deep passion for “supporting faith communities in fulfilling the call to resist oppression, advance social justice, and end systems of oppression in the United States and beyond,” according to materials contributed in support of Parke.

Last November, Parke helped organize the first Never Again direct action in the rural South. Never Again Action is a national movement of Jewish people, immigrants, and allies who oppose the arrest and detention practices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

“The intersectional and relational nature of your approach to changing systems of oppression is something we want to recognize for it power to truly transform persons and systems,” Docherty said in a letter of congratulations to Parke. 

Previously, Parke worked for Political Research Associates, a Boston-based thinktank which seeks to understand and interrupt right-wing extremist white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and antisemitism.