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.

Across video conference screens, Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield and Kirby Broadnax MA ’20 sit down together. Their topic of discussion: learning from our pain. 

“For me, there’s not a moment or a particular event that I think about, but just a continual deepening of my understanding of the ways that structural traumas like racism and sexism in particular, have impacted, continue to impact my life and my body,” Broadnax says. “So working to understand how internalized oppression is a trauma response, and how to dismantle that within myself.”

“Thank you for naming those painful realities,” says Mansfield. “What are some of the things that help you build resilience for facing those things?”

“I really love music, and so I often turn to music to accompany me through the variety of feelings that I experience. And I also like to sing, and singing helps me move energy through my body in a way that feels really helpful,” Broadnax replies. 

Broadnax then leads the pair in an energy meditation. This short, six-minute interaction – listening to and sharing about healing journeys, and finding ways to physically practice trauma resilience – is part of the Care Together video series published by the STAR program.

In each of the 11 short videos, Mansfield sits down with a different STAR trainer, practitioner, or former participant to share that healing space. STAR Director Hannah Kelley says the video series began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and we started working from home, we knew we had something to offer the world. The pandemic, its implications, and the inequities that it unmasked were traumagenic for many people,” Kelley says. “We wanted to provide a way for people to recognize trauma responses and understand all of those responses as natural and normal. In addition, we wanted to focus on resilience and practices that foster resilience.”

Each Care Together guest brings a different practice to the table to help those watching get “unstuck” from our trauma responses, Kelley explains. 

The featured guests in the series are:

• Joy Krieder, independent trauma consultant, in “Creating and Breathing Resilience,”
• Meenakshi Chhabra, professor at Lesley University, in “Opening our Bodies to Healing Historical Trauma,”
• Marisabel Kubiak Sanchez, chief executive officer of a public health consulting firm, in “Starting with Health and Wellness to Help Others,”
• Professor Emeritus Vernon Jantzi, in “Moving and Stretching in the Face of Violence,”
• Letitia Bates ’16, a certified life coach, in “Healing the Pain of the Past,” [read more about Letitia]
• Crixell Shell, assistant executive director of the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute, in “Unpacking Experiences of Systemic Racism,” [read more about the institute’s work]
• Tyler Goss MA ’19, in “Acknowledging that All Trauma is Significant,”
• Katia Ornelas MA ’13, founder of Ornelas Konsultant, in “Sharing our Healing Journey,”
• Kirby Broadnax MA ’20, in “Learning from Our Pain,”
• David Nyiringabo MA ’20, in “Believing in the Therapy of Laughing, Singing, and Dancing,” and
• Kajungu Mturi MA ’18, in “Using Power for Justice & Peace.” 

What will a post-pandemic world look like? How is COVID-19 affecting each of us differently, and what are our responsibilities to one another in the face of those disparities? What do we know about the biology of the virus? And are there things that are changing for the better because of this crisis?

A free seven-week online course offered at 91����Ƶ this summer will delve into those questions and more. Community members are welcome. Students can opt for a pass/fail grade and will have online access to readings, videos, and other materials before each class. 

The course meets each Tuesday evening, beginning June 30, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. for seven weeks, with a different pair or trio of faculty and staff from different academic fields leading each class.

The lectures and Q and A will be recorded and available for viewing later.

The course is co-led by language and literature professor Kevin Seidel and chemistry professor Laurie Yoder.

“What pulled me in at first was the possibility of teaching with faculty from all three schools – sciences, social sciences, and humanities – talking together and learning from one another about the virus,” Seidel said. When the pandemic hit, he started fervently gathering information and perspective: from scientists, from fictive literature, and from poetry, trying to make sense of “this strange new world.” 

Week 1 | June 30, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Treating COVID-19

What do we know about the biology of COVID-19? What’s next in vaccine development? What public health measures are working to slow the spread of COVID-19?

Kristopher Schmidt, Associate Professor of Biology

Kate Clark, Assistant Professor of Nursing

Week 2 | July 7, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Pandemic History and Data

What can we learn from past pandemics about life after this one? What can we learn from visual presentations of data about the pandemic? 

Mary Sprunger, Professor of History

Daniel Showalter, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Week 3 | July 14, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Politics and Collective Trauma

Why has the U.S. response to COVID-19 been so contentious and uneven? What is collective trauma and what might it have to do with that response?

Mark Metzler Sawin, Professor of History

Ryan Thompson, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Trina Trotter Nussbaum, Associate Director, Center for Interfaith Engagement

Week 4 | July 21, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Zoonotic Viruses, Wet Markets, and the Economics of COVID-19

Where do coronaviruses come from? What are the links between environmental degradation and pandemics? What does COVID-19 have to teach us about how our economy is connected to the natural world? What are the economic impacts from a pandemic?

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Jim Leaman, Associate Professor of Business and Leadership

Week 5 | July 28, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Our Life with Animals, Our Life with God

Why are so many people taking refuge in nature during the pandemic? Why is that refuge harder to come by for some people? What do the scriptures say about how our life with God is related to our life with animals? 

Steven Johnson, Professor of Visual and Communication Arts 

Andrea Saner, Associate Professor of Old Testament

Week 6 | August 4, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Systemic Racism in the U.S. before and after COVID-19

Why has COVID-19 hit African-Americans harder than other groups? Why does rural Navajo Nation have the highest infection rates in the country?

Jenni Holsinger, Associate Professor of Sociology 

Matt Tibbles, Teaching Fellow, Applied Social Sciences

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Week 7 | August 11, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Resilience, Repair, and Transformation after COVID-19

How do we carry forward what we’ve learned about COVID-19, trauma, and restorative justice? 

Johonna Turner, Assistant Professor of Restorative Justice and Peacebuilding

Katie Mansfield, Lead Trainer, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR)

Katie Mansfield is the featured guest of the eighth episode of the Peacebuilder podcast. Mansfield, lead trainer of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), speaks about her path to STAR from working in multinational banking during 9/11, polyvagal theory, and her dissertation work on embodied trauma healing.

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.

Mansfield, who was raised on Long Island, flew back to New York on September 8, 2011, to be close to her mother after her grandmother’s death. She lost friends in the terror attacks on September 11. 

“I was physically present with both a sense of fear and powerlessness that I had not, until that point, experienced in my body before,” Mansfield says. A few years later, she quit her job and began learning about different ways of seeing the world from a family in India – a peace education teacher; his wife, a human rights lawyer; and his mother, the first female high court justice in the country.

During “time around their table, they were just removing dirt from my eyes,” Mansfield says. When she returned to the States, she worked with the organization Peace Games alongside school children grappling with neighborhood violence and interpersonal conflict. Her mentor there suggested she pursue further education in peace studies. 

Mansfield went on to study under John Paul Lederach at the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame, who suggested she take a class in restorative justice at the program he helped found – CJP. After finishing her master’s in international peace studies, she attended the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2009, which “made a very strong impression.” 

She recalls attending a STAR training in 2010, where she talked about her experiences on 9/11. Another attendee from Somalia told her, “Well, now you know how we feel every day.”

Mansfield’s doctoral dissertation, Re-friending My Body: Arts-based, embodied learning for restoring my entirety, in part draws on neuroscientist Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory, which deals with the vagus nerve’s role in the embodiment of emotion and trauma.

“So many of us are learning the words, but not the embodiment,” Mansfield says. “Trauma and joy and life land on the body, and systems and structures, and how people respond to us is because of what’s happening in the nervous system. Do I feel safe in a situation in my body, or do I feel endangered?”

In researching for her dissertation, Mansfield was confronted with the power and privilege she’s experienced in her own life, and their effects on how she interacts with others. Similarly, she sees one of CJP’s core challenges now, at its 25th anniversary, as overcoming a tradition of “helpers and healers” going from a privileged and safe position to help others in less privileged situations.

“That model is a holdover from colonial mindsets, and it is not fully respectful of the incredible resilience, capacity, wisdom, power, healthy power that exists in all of these communities that some people are trying to go help,” Mansfield says.

4/29

This article by Nzar Sharif is republished with permission from The Citizen, an independent Harrisonburg-based news website with several 91����Ƶ alumni involved, including co-founder Andrew Jenner. We encourage you to support their work: Visit the and .

The Citizen often gets to news before we do. In this case, an email from alumnus Tom Brenneman alerted us to Katie Mansfield‘s virtual dance parties — check it out, he wrote — and Katie said The Citizen was already on it.

With countries banning mass gatherings and governments and health organizations are urging people to practice social distance to stop the spread of COVID-19, people are having to get creative to make contact with each other and unite amid being quarantined. 

After Virginia’s governor declared a state of emergency, one Harrisonburg resident started Dancing Resilience as a virtual dancing community to do just that. 

The aim of building this online community is to make people feel connected, but in another form, said Katie Mansfield, Dancing Resilience’s founder. 

“It felt important to honor the need to stay home/stay out of circulation to protect the most vulnerable bodies and to honor the need to connect with each other and celebrate love and hope. I had just come from facilitating a STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) training in Washington D.C,” Mansfield said. “The tension and anxiety were so high, and my co-facilitator and I realized how much fear was gripping people, not just the people we were with, but many people all over the world. She and I worked hard to interrupt the sinking into fear and to amplify the vibration of love.”

Mansfield, who works for 91����Ƶ’s as a lead trainer for its Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience program, is working to finish her PhD in expressive arts and conflict transformation. Her specific focus is on “Re-friending the Body,” which explores how “arts-based, embodied learning is critical for us to transform the violent patterns, historical harms, disconnection and mechanization that define so many social experiences these days,” she said. 

Mansfield started building the online community among her close friends, but once word spread, it became a global virtual dancing community where people joined the community from different states and other parts of the worlds. Mansfield dances five times a day for 20 minutes at a time, and others join in.

Right now, “Dancing Resilience” is a private Facebook group that’s spread by invitation, so Mansfield said if people are friends of hers, or friends of her friends, they can request to join the group, which “seems to work” for now.

The inspiration for it also came from social media.

“I read a Facebook post from my friend in Florence, Italy. Along with her challenges, she shared the  in many locations to sing out their windows at a certain time of day to diminish isolation during mandated social distancing. It made me wonder what I and my friends could do, and for me the natural answer was dancing,” Mansfield told The Citizen.

Soon after, the private Facebook group which she called “Dancing Resilience” started, and within a few days, 228 members had  joined. 

“Most of the participants are friends of mine, with whom I have danced before, in person. So, we have a great embodied memory of sharing space and movement and love,” Mansfield said. “Some of the participants are friends of friends, who just want to connect and move. It’s been awesome to reconnect with some friends I haven’t seen or talked to in weeks or months or years.” 

A global reach for ‘Dancing Resilience‘

So far Dancing Resilience has participants from 17 states and six other countries, including Canada, Kenya, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago and the UK. Ages so far range from 2 to people in their 50s.

Christine Cole, who is from Trinidad and Tobago, said she found joy and happiness when she was able to connect again with Mansfield and many other friends whom she met in Harrisonburg when she attended a Summer Peacebuilding Workshop at 91����Ƶ. 

Carol Subino Sullivan from Atlanta is another participant who dances frequently. She said she hopes that the love, beauty and movement Mansfield has generated reverberates and inspires similar communities to spring up.

“This is a great way to cut through the isolation to bring community, joy, movement and hope in a dark time–in a way that still keeps us from spreading the virus,” Sullivan said.  “With creativity, caring, resolve and technology, we can flatten the curve and protect our human community.” 

Sullivan’s daughter, who is now almost 2 years old, received a liver transplant last year that saved her life. But the medicine her daughter must take affects her immune system, so reducing social contact is important. 

“I cannot take any chances, so I’m practicing strict social distancing,” she said. “I had let all of my dance communities know that I would no longer be attending in person.  I told friends I wouldn’t be able to gather with them for occasions we had planned.  Though my resolve was firm, I still felt sad — dance, friendships all of these nourish my soul and help me to bring my best self into the world.  Katie’s invitation to join the virtual dance community met me at that place of sadness and created a path for our souls still to connect and be filled.” 

Paulette Moore joined from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory near Toronto, Canada. She focused on the importance of dance and body movement especially in the time of uncertainty. 

“We need to remember that our own energies create our worlds and dancing transforms both our personal and collective energies,” Moore said. “People have become so data-driven, technologically-dependent and social media-focused that I believe many have forgotten we have bodies — and our bodies are the key to not just how we survive — but how we thrive.” 

Songs that match the mood

Mansfield said the music arrangement typically starts with something slow to allow people to arrive and stretch. Then, “it moves into something that evokes the water element, praying for water, and feeling our own fluidity,” she said. 

There is not a specific dancing style. Dances could have different movement and rhythms each times. 

“People are invited to move however they please,” Mansfield said. “Some people don’t look at the screen much, just dancing in their own space to the music provided. Others get pretty interactive with other dancers by coming closer to the camera and engaging intentionally. Sometimes I invite individuals to lead us one at a time. Some people who’ve joined are deeply skilled and trained dancers, while others of us just like to move our bodies to music. Some of us don’t move much at all.”

Before the playlist ends, participants will dance to a song or two “that are connective, celebratory, and/or power-honoring,” she added. 

“Sometimes I’ll put in songs that acknowledge the difficulty of isolation, the vulnerability of our humanity, as well as songs that emphasize possibilities, hope, and strength,” Mansfield said. 

But one constant is that the playlist always finishes with the song “Resilient” by Rising Appalachia. 

Not only is Dancing Resilience connecting people and freeing them from isolation across the globe, but it’s also an outlet for others in Harrisonburg, where the universities, schools and other businesses have closed.

Donna Schminkey, an assistant professor of nursing at JMU, is a participant from Harrisonburg, who is self-isolating because of risk factors in her household. 

 “The opportunity to reach out and be a part of a ritual that happens at more or less set times a day, to check-in with other people and see that we are not alone in the world, and to share music and movement with each other — this is the holiest thing I can think of doing right now,” she said. 

Breaking the isolation — virtually

Just as important, she said dancing with others — even virtually — makes her and her family feel less lonely, less isolated. 

“These days are full of opportunities for us to show each other the best of our shared and individual humanity,” Schminkey said. “That is what Katie has created for us.  It is beautiful, and it is something that in our former life routines, there ‘wasn’t time for,’ but now, we can be present for each other and attend to the sacred together, multiple times a day.”

It’s also offered a welcome break from her work in trying to shift her classwork online to help her senior nursing students through their last weeks of college “so they can join the ranks of healthcare professionals who are on the frontlines of this pandemic.”

“There is an urgency to my work, and it involves spending hours at the computer typing and talking,” she said. “To stand up and move and immerse myself in journey dancing is a great gift.

And for my daughter, the dancing resilience provides structure, and connection to the outer world, as well as a chance to move, even on rainy days. It is beautiful that we can both be meeting new friends and their pets in this virtual community.”

“Family means everything to Monacan people,” said the tribe’s chief, Kenneth Branham, during 91����Ƶ’s Community Day on Feb. 14. During a noon plenary session, Branham interspersed the history of with poignant anecdotes in a warm, Tidewater accent about his family, friends, and interactions with neighboring communities.

Branham, also known as “Papaw the Chief” to his grandchildren, was one of two keynote speakers to address approximately 100 attendees. He was joined by Frank Dukes, a professor at the University of Virginia, who was involved in community processing of the new memorial to the enslaved laborers who helped to build the university.

Community Day acts as a glimpse into the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI). During SPI’s four sessions in May and June, academically credentialed practitioners teach five- and seven-day courses that can be taken for personal skills growth and training or academic credit. Three-day workshops are also offered.

Connecting with Indigenous Virginians

Graduate student Tala Bautista, who introduced Branham, was 91����Ƶ’s first connection to the Monacan Nation. As a member of the Sumacher First Nation in Kalinga, Philippines, she arrived in Virginia looking for other indigenous voices and made a visit to the Monacans in the fall.

“When we asked the chief what we could do as a response to the stories he shared to us, he said, ‘Tell anyone you meet that we exist,’” Bautista recalled in the recent Crossroads magazine. “In my last year here as a student, I am doing my best to do what he told us.”

The Monacan nation was granted federal recognition in 2018 – a distinction Branham has fought for his entire life. While he noted, tongue-in-cheek, that “you don’t get any checks” with the recognition, it does allow the tribe to apply for education scholarships, assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and access to the Indian Health Service.

Federal recognition is in some ways, Branham said, a symbol of pride and security – that Monacans no longer have to hide their heritage.

“I asked my grandmother one time, and she told me with tears in her eyes, she said, son, if someone were to hear us teaching you anything about being Indian, we might not have had a place to live the next day,” Branham recalled. “Everybody should be proud of who they are. And that’s what we’re trying to instill in our young people.”

A long road toward memorializing enslaved laborers

Frank Dukes, distinguished institute fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Engagement & Negotiation, spoke about other efforts to raise awareness about Virginia’s racial history in his plenary address and in a workshop on transforming community spaces. In 2007, Dukes helped to start the University and Community Action for Racial Equity group, which sought stakeholder feedback on how to improve the university’s relationship with the community – including how to acknowledge their history as an institution built by enslaved laborers.

“We have to actually tell a more complete history of the university,” Dukes said. “History can teach, and all of us must be willing to learn.”

After a years-long collaborative process, including input from the descendants that could be found of the 4,000 people who had been enslaved on the campus, the group had designed and built. It is now in the final stages of construction. A public dedication ceremony is planned for April 11.

Community Day participants: What they said

• Laura Sunder-Rao, a third-grade teacher from Elkton, Va.

Sunder-Rao was one of 25 local teachers whose attendance was sponsored by a local donor couple who began funding scholarships last year to introduce local educators to peacebuilding and restorative justice concepts. She attended Professor Kathy Evans’ workshop on circle processes in schools, which was packed with teachers, counselors, and school administrators from around the state. 

Sunder-Rao and other teachers peppered Evans with questions about how to improve their circles, especially when students are reluctant to speak or even sit in the circle.

“You can’t rush trust … there’s a reason they’re not invested,” said Evans.

• Marc Jaccard, executive director of the Henry and William Evans Home for Children in Winchester, Va.

Jaccard, who has served at the home since 1995, works with children who are placed in the group home by their parents due to homelessness or other unsafe situations. Currently, there are 12 children at the home, who are looked after collaboratively by their parents and the home staff. The home’s services include “everything from emergency support to an alumni house where they can live and pay rent, receiving the rent back when they leave,” Jaccard said.

“I enjoyed learning about circles in schools, and feel that there is an easy application in our environment here.”

• Kelly Altizer, associate with the UVA Institute for Engagement & Negotiation.

Altizer coordinates the Virginia Natural Resources Leadership Institute and supports other projects through the institute, such as a Governor’s Summit on Equitable Collaboration and a natural resource conservation and economic development project in the Lower Chickahominy watershed. From a workshop on personal formation for peacebuilders, Altizer gleaned “the need to be more thoughtful about how the different facets of my identity contribute to my empowerment or disempowerment in any situation, and how that informs my ability to facilitate change, or to support others in doing so.” 

• Cameron Wilson, human resources learning specialist for the city of Roanoke.

Wilson has worked in adult education for over 10 years, and now develops and leads training for the city of Roanoke to ensure “employees have the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in their work.” A two-time attendee at Community Day, Wilson wants to seek out “opportunities for the City of Roanoke to collaborate more equitably with the community, and I hope to be able to bring a trauma-informed lens to my work with the city by attending a full STAR training in the near future.”

A time capsule of 91����Ƶ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) is in the works – not to be buried, but uploaded. The artifact in question is a podcast, which will feature ten CJP faculty and staff members reflecting on the history of CJP and their own peacebuilding work. The 10-episode series is set to launch on Wednesday Jan. 22, 2020, with a new episode dropping every other week on the Peacebuilder website.

The podcast is the creation of Patience Kamau, a 2017 graduate of the program and also chair of CJP’s 25th anniversary committee, who wanted to give students, alumni, friends and supporters of the graduate program an in-depth look at where CJP has been, where it is now, and where it hopes to go.

“For the sake of posterity, this is emerging as a gem,” Kamau said. “These voices are here right now, many of them were here 25 years ago, and given the simple trajectory of life, are unlikely to be here 25 years from now.”

But why a podcast, specifically?

“It’s a way that a lot of people are consuming information these days. I think it’s a necessary long-form method of connecting with the audience,” Kamau explained, in contrast to the “fragmented” nature of social media posts. “When you’re doing it on podcasts, you can go into more depth, and you can connect with an audience in a different, more meaningful way.”

While the exact episode order is yet to be determined, Kamau said the pilot will feature Barry Hart. His interview acts as a primer to CJP, touching on elements like the Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding series and curriculum design, which other interviewees then dive into more deeply. “It’s like passing on a baton,” Kamau said. 

She asked each interviewee the same questions, based on the 25th anniversary’s theme of “celebrate, reflect, dream,” but of course “each one of them goes down a very unique path based on their own careers and life experiences.”

Kamau is an avid podcast consumer – she subscribes to at least eight, and regularly listens to others beyond those. That gave her an ear for what makes for a good listening experience, as she went into the project having to teach herself about audio production by looking up internet guides and tutorials.

Alumni Michaela Mast ‘18 and ‘19 have also helped breathe life into the podcast. Mast, co-host of the climate justice podcast , which is sponsored by the housed at 91����Ƶ, has lent technical assistance. Mullet, whose scores have been featured in recent documentaries and video games, is composing original music for the episodes.The podcast’s audio mixing engineer is Steve Angello who works closely with Mullet.  

“There’s something organic about it, just doing the work in anticipation of what will emerge. It’s a work of art, where the overall beauty lies in paying attention to the details” Kamau said.

The episodes will be also available on Apple Podcasts on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, and TuneIn.

Featured voices

Each episode presents an interview with the following CJP affiliates, listed alphabetically by last name as the exact episode order is yet to be determined.

• David Brubaker, dean of 91����Ƶ’s School of Social Sciences and Professions and longtime CJP professor,
• Jayne Docherty, executive director,
• Bill Goldberg, director of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute,
• Barry Hart, professor of trauma, identity and conflict studies,
• Katie Mansfield, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program lead trainer,
• Janelle Myers-Benner, academic program coordinator,
• Gloria Rhodes, professor of peacebuilding and conflict studies,
• Carl Stauffer, professor of restorative and transitional justice and co-director of the ,
• Johonna Turner, professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding and co-director of the , and
• Howard Zehr, distinguished professor of restorative justice.

“It takes courage to try to address harms at the systemic level, such as the land theft that is at the foundation of the service; at the institutional level, like culture and climate issues faced by employees throughout the service; and the individual level, things like interpersonal bullying and harassment. None of our organizations is a shining example of doing this well, so it’s a gift to be part of the process of struggle toward change.”

STAR Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield

The National Park Service is focusing on improvement of its workplace culture and climate – and calling in the help of restorative justice and conflict transformation professionals from 91����Ƶ’s Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program.

Most recently, STAR trainers conducted a training and facilitated discussion over four days in Philadelphia for 20 federal workers, including five park service superintendents. Its goal? To engage with trauma and resilience experts to help shift workplace culture and build employee satisfaction throughout park service offices in the Northeast.

The event was the second time STAR has worked with the park service and more trainings are being planned, according to STAR Program Director Hannah Kelley.

The inclusion of STAR programming has provided a way into addressing systemic issues within the park service’s unique context, said Rebecca Stanfield McCown, director of the host agency, the National Park Service . “I’m still amazed at the impact of the December workshop, which not only connected each of us to the personal and human side of trauma awareness and restorative practices, but helped us begin to develop a common language around these principles.” 

NPS explores the potential of RJ

The Stewardship Institute is dedicated to helping NPS leaders “move the organization in new directions” through collaboration and dialogue. It began exploring the potential of restorative justice for “employee wellness in the face of harassment and hostility” about two years ago, McCown said.  

At about the same time, Grand Canyon National Park hosted a STAR training. Park administrators were connected with STAR by Sigal Shoham, a 2013 alumna of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and an organizational omsbudsman with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution (CADR). 

Administrators at The Stewardship Institute were especially interested in the beneficial outcomes of the training in Arizona. “When we were looking to understand what role restorative practices could have in addressing harassment and hostility, we reached out to STAR because of the good things we had heard from the staff at Grand Canyon,” McCown said.

She added: “It had been challenging to communicate the potential alignment and benefits restorative practices could bring to the NPS because most of us lacked the language and strong understanding of how it might be applied to our workplaces.”

With STAR programming shaped to that educational goal and outside experts brought in for the facilitated discussion, the Philadelphia training helped the Stewardship Institute shine light on the way forward. 

Positive outcomes

The training was facilitated by STAR Lead Trainer Katie Mansfield and Jonathan Swartz, a restorative justice practitioner and Center for Justice and Peacebuilding alumnus. The participants, including Shoham and other CADR employees, spent 2.5 days learning about the personal and organizational impacts of trauma, concepts and applications of restorative justice, self care, and secondary traumatic stress. 

The remainder of the third and fourth days focused on a facilitated dialogue, during which participants could ask questions of experts in restorative justice, trauma awareness and resilience, truth and reconciliation, and organizational anthropology, including the STAR trainers themselves. 91����Ƶ professors Johonna Turner and Carolyn Stauffer, who bring expertise in trauma awareness, resilience and restorative justice, contributed to this discussion, which also included cultural anthropologists and other specialists.

One outcome of the final session was strategies and action items to create awareness, implement practices, and build a new culture. 

“I could feel the combination of struggle and inspiration and care among the participants,” said Mansfield “It takes courage to try to address harms at the systemic level, such as the land theft that is at the foundation of the service; as well as at the institutional level, like culture and climate issues faced by employees throughout the service; and the individual level, things like interpersonal bullying and harassment. None of our organizations is a shining example of doing this well, so it’s a gift to be part of the process of struggle toward change.”

The December workshop, McCown said, equipped park service staff to begin “to implement trauma-aware and restorative practices in our individual parks or program culture,” such as developing workshops for more staff. The participants are also working to “identify ways that park leadership can foster workplaces that include restorative practices and trauma-aware leadership.”

“My key learning at CJP is the importance of embodied learning in peacebuilding, which is new to peacebuilding education here but also in Korea,” she said.

This month, Ahn did just that – hosting a five-day course at 91����Ƶ on “Building Resilience for Body, Mind and Spirit” for 18 visiting South Korean K-12 educators.

The “arts-based, embodied learning experience was developed to revitalize creativity for working in nonviolent social transformation,” said course creator Katie Mansfield, the lead trainer of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program.

Offered in past years at CJP’s , the course was tailored for this group by Ahn and Mansfield. Goals included an understanding of how systemic and cultural violence affects individual trauma, building resilience in body, mind, and spirit through arts-based, embodied learning, and empowerment for making social change, Ahn said.

“It was an honor that Eunkyung chose to bring her colleagues to CJP and 91����Ƶ,” said Hannah Kelley, STAR program director. “CJP has been hosting a growing number of US and international groups for short-term trainings like this one. We learn from the people who attend our trainings: the problems in their work, their careful analysis of their context, and their creative and innovative approaches to RJ, trauma awareness and resilience. This group was no exception! These teachers are thoughtful and creative peace-builders, and we were excited to work together for a week.”

Working to transform South Korean educational systems

The educators are members of the Center for Restorative Justice in Education, an affiliate of the Movement for Good Teachers, a Christian teachers association in South Korea. The movement is “a grassroots effort by Christian teachers to transform Korean education with justice, peace and love,” Ahn said. Formed in 2011 in response to a rise in school bullying, the teacher-members are working to promote nonviolence and peace in the school environment.

Course participants Inki Hong, Eunji Park and Byeongjoo Lee are senior teachers at schools in urban neighborhoods near Seoul. Hong and Park teach elementary school in Sang-tan and Gwan-ak, respectively. Lee teaches middle and high school English in Sin-neung; he has also worked in reform schools and in China. All learned about circle processes and restorative justice in different ways, including teacher academies and international workshops, some involving Jae-Young Lee MA ‘03, founder of the Korea Peacebuilding Institute.

Before he learned about restorative justice, Hong says he played the role of a judge with his students.

“Before, when children fight, I would have to decide who is wrong and who is right,” he said. “Now, I don’t decide. I help you figure out what happened and how to make things right. The circle makes equal power and equal power is not usually found in classrooms.”

Children in Korea “do not know how to express themselves,” said Park. “In the circle, they know how. It really develops metacognitive skills.”

Lee, who teaches older children and teenagers, said with a smile that if he used the circle process in class, “my students might think I was crazy.”

“Apart from application,” he said more seriously, “I am learning how the philosophy of RJ can be shaped into many circle styles. The format and philosophy of RJ has emerged to me in a more concrete way, which I find very inspiring.”

All three educators work with newcomer teachers in their home settings and plan to share their learnings in hopes of contributing to culture and systemic change in the educational environment.

Visit to 91����Ƶ fulfills ‘a dream’

The Center for Restorative Justice in Education has offered international learning opportunities in the past. With other center members, Ahn traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, five years ago. A visit to 91����Ƶ has been “a dream” for the group, she said, and shortly after she arrived at CJP for graduate studies, she began working with CJP faculty and staff.

“I am most appreciative of the supportive efforts of CJP executive director Daryl Byler, Jayne Docherty, Bill Goldberg, Hannah Kelley and Katie Mansfield, who made it happen,” she said.

Docherty is CJP’s academic programs director. Goldberg directs the Summer Peacebuilding Institute, an annual program that offers similar short courses on a range of topics. 

Mansfield brings years of experience leading STAR trainings around the globe, many of which are specially adapted to meet specific needs of the hosting group.

The “Building Resilience” course invites learners “to exercise their creative muscle, a critical foundational practice for challenging violence,” she said. Participants engage in visual artistry, music making, movement exploration, poetry and short story development, and final presentations. A session with visiting co-facilitator Ram Bhagat involved drumming and contemplative practices.

Mansfield appreciated the group’s engagement: “I was so impressed at how deeply and directly the educators connected the various expressive arts exercises to the challenges they face as educators, restorative justice practitioners and citizens of Korea.”

Facets of their resilience were expressed, she said, through connections made to the ongoing civil rights journey in the US, “a moving percussion and movement performance about confronting and transcending violence,” and an arts-based lament of/transformative response to the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster, in which 299 people died, many of them high school students.

Spreading the word

After graduation in May 2018, Ahn will take STAR II. She looks forward to seeing what she has learned since taking STAR I at the beginning of her studies two years ago. Then she’ll take some months to travel and visit spirituality-based peacebuilding communities before returning to her teaching position in South Korea.

“I am so passionate about growing as an educator and helping to educate others about valuing our whole beings,” she said. “It is so important to live with our true selves in our individual and communal lives, and I hope to share that with my students and their parents and other educators in the future.”

Contributors to the “Changing the Narrative on Sexual Harms” (CTN) project include STAR trainer Katie Mansfield, program director Hannah Kelley and practitioner Joy Kreider. The project will be housed under the at 91����Ƶ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

STAR has facilitated trauma and resilience trainings with thousands of participants from more than 60 countries. The CTN project and resulting curriculum will deepen the program’s work addressing sexual trauma specifically and will engage all affected parties – from individuals to institutions – in proactive, preventative and restorative approaches.

“Worldwide there is a growing admission that the topic of sexual harms is quickly moving from invisible peripheries to conspicuous center stage,” Stauffer said. “The CTN project provides a viable way to be visibly present at a critical time in this important conversation. This proactive approach frames the paradigm shift opportunity offered by CTN.”

The grant includes funding for assembling focus groups in local and international settings, interviewing global practice leaders, and accessing expertise at institutions such as Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

The project will collect input from survivors across diverse communities to ensure the inclusion of voices from marginalized and underrepresented communities. In addition to the harmful impacts of sexual violence on individuals, the curriculum will address how power disequilibriums can foster cultures of violence in communities and organizations.

“Many organizations do not have processes in place to support individuals in a trauma-sensitive manner nor the impetus to push for proactive policies that prevent sexual violence in the first place,” Stauffer wrote. “Daily we hear of ‘sexual misconduct’ that gains notoriety precisely because institutions are non-compliant with current legislation and ignorant of trauma-sensitive intervention protocols. Such gaps not only compound the profound harms already done to victims, but they also put the integrity, legality and legitimacy of organizations at risk.”

The focuses on individuals and organizations working for effective change through innovative approaches to societal challenges relating to gender, environmental and/or economic justice. It is administered by through the Everence affiliate, Mennonite Foundation.

“This project is the heart of what JustPax is all about,” said Teresa Boshart Yoder, managing director for Everence in Harrisonburg. “We want to reach out to the underserved or vulnerable and begin programs that will bring about effective change.”

This $6,600 grant is the second Stauffer has received from JustPax. A 2016 grant of $10,200 supported a project called “Silent Violence,” which studied strategies of resilience among domestic violence survivors from within communities of homeless women, undocumented Latinas, and Mennonite women from Old Order or conservative church communities.

There’s even a proverb that Daryl Snider learned in his years of service in Haiti: “We are wozo. We bend, but we do not break.”

It’s also what Snider and Frances Crowhill Miller call their music- and story-based performances that explore grief and loss, trauma healing, resilience, restorative justice, and structural justice and the legacy of colonialism. They first performed in 2014, and released a CD with that title in 2015.

The Pennsylvania duo perform as Sopa Sol. They both sing, and Miller plays hang and violin and Snider guitar, sax, oboe and akogo. In January they join Nathan Bontrager and Professor Emeritus Ken Nafziger to present two “” events, one at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 5 at , and the other at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 6 at .

Their Wozo project specifically grew out their time together at 91����Ƶ’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), and studies in the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) program.

Miller earned a graduate certificate in conflict transformation in 2011, and Snider a master’s in conflict transformation in 2012.

In 2013, after Miller relocated near Snider in Lancaster County, the duo began collaborating to further incorporate their training with music. They realized that their songs fit onto STAR’s “snail model” – a spiral that shows various stops on the journey of breaking cycles of violence and building resilience.

STAR lead trainer Katie Mansfield also sees music as having that potential “to touch the specific and universal in our life experiences, and to integrate people’s embodied experience, emotions and stories,” she said. “It invites community and connection around both our traumas and our resilience, just as STAR promotes the integration of our experiences into our emerging identity as individuals and collectives.”

The Wozo album and program includes songs such as “Hole in Her Heart” that tells a story of Snider’s widowed mother’s grief: “Not even the love of ten thousand good friends / eases pain she now feels just may never end.” Other songs – such as “We Are Wozo,” from a poem by a Haitian man – tell other people’s stories: “I walk in the daytime, I walk at night / But just outside my door / Heaven’s shadow looms.”

Not all focus on brokenness and trauma; some are about reconnecting to community and finding joy. The heartening yet bittersweet “Glimmer of Sun”  proclaims, “One of these mornings we shall rise / and the clouds will have broken…. / Kiss the morning sunlight / and this path you have chosen.”

And there’s humor. In “One Bad Song,” Snider sings “One bad song, my only goal / I won’t reach too far today. / One bad song, could make me whole, / at least in one small way.”

While not all Sopa Sol performances are specifically “Wozo,” many of Sopa Sol’s 40 events in the last several years contained elements of the project. As artists, they are “concerned about the musical elements of it, for sure,” Miller said, but the nature of their music means they also have to think about whether they are inviting listeners into a helpful experience.

“The music is more than just entertainment,” Snider said. “It’s important for us to take care of our audience. We want to be sure to bring people along in a careful way.”

Miller and Snider tailor each live performance to their audiences. A recent gig for a STAR course meant they could get into the “the harder stuff to look at,” Miller said, while in more general settings, they stick with songs of resilience and “letting the music do more of the work.” She said it felt like two of her songs had been “written for” one particular sexual assault prevention event; at a hospice event, a simple group ritual that the duo incorporated felt “especially poignant.”

On their part, it takes trust and hope, they said – that the perspectives, stories and emotions woven into their performances will offer “reassurance of healing and life after brokenness,” Miller said. “There’s this balance of analyzing what we are presenting, but then at the same time there’s letting go and letting music do its thing beyond what you could ever plan or imagine.”

That can be difficult – “or perhaps impossible” – to measure, said Snider. “I hope our listeners take away new understandings of the world, but I also want them to experience the event at an emotional level. Changes that occur within people at such a low, visceral level may take years and other experiences to grow, and folks may never point to our music as the catalyst or seed. Our music may be only a small part of that change, that awakening.”

Wozo’s ongoing development is balanced with the rest of their lives – they both perform individually or with other ensembles, too, and Miller has a micro-dairy and two young children – but they see Wozo as a potential resource for many different groups, such as veterans and people who are incarcerated.

“This can go many, many places as time allows,” Miller said. “But it’s a slow-cooker project.”

“We wanted to learn deeply about the roots of this movement,” the husband-wife duo wrote in an email – and to “meet people who were walking toward the same way that we wanted to go.”

The group of 21 teachers, students, community leaders and legal professionals was hosted by 91����Ƶ’s and the Jan. 16-17 during an 11-day east coast tour organized with the (KOPI). Since 2000, KOPI has educated and trained individuals and organizations in various domestic and international peace education programs.

The participants on this trip had already learned from restorative justice (RJ) and discipline workshops in Korea, said KOPI director Jae Young Lee. The purpose of this trip was to learn about the “spiritual, cultural, and historical backgrounds” of the restorative justice movement.

“If we believe RJ is a paradigm and not a program, it is important to know the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition emphasizing peace and justice as a center of their faith,” he said.

To that end, Zehr Institute co-directors and co-facilitated a session on restorative justice in Anabaptist tradition and Christian theology. Other sessions led by professors and provided overview and discussion of such varying topics as the implications of RJ and historical harms for educators. The group also experienced a one-day Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) training led by Katie Mansfield.

A 2003 CJP graduate whose work has been featured in Peacebuilder magazine, Lee said that the RJ education such as he experienced at 91����Ƶ doesn’t impact only enrolled students.

“When you transform one person’s life through education, it can [create] transforming power for hundreds and thousands of people in the future,” he said, adding that KOPI held nearly 1,500 workshops and lectures on RJ and peacebuilding during 2017 alone.

The visit was also an opportunity for “two-way” learning, said CJP executive director Daryl Byler – for both CJP staff and graduates like Lee and fellow delegation participant Yoonseo Park, who earned his masters in conflict transformation in 2016.

“They and others have taken the restorative justice training they received at CJP and expanded its application to a variety of Korean contexts – including the criminal justice, educational and health systems, as well as in housing and church conflicts,” Byler said.

Although preparing for such delegations requires a major commitment of time and resources at CJP, Byler said that “the payoff is priceless.”

Following their two days at 91����Ƶ, the delegation also visited the Mennonite Central Committee headquarters and Material Resources Center in Akron, Pennsylvania; met with shooting victims and family members in the Nickel Mines Amish community; toured Belleville, Pennsylvania; and visited two Washington D.C. schools that practice restorative discipline.

Titled “Practical Tools for Hard Problems in Our Communities,” the day’s workshops will offer practical tools and build skills for peacebuilding, conflict transformation in the workplace, and facilitation and community organizing. The day will also include a morning plenary speaker, opportunities for networking, and a lunch presentation by regional community leaders.

The event is also designed to give participants a preview of the community atmosphere and courses offered at , a program of the (CJP). SPI’s five sessions in May and June focus on a variety of topics including trauma awareness, restorative justice, leadership, program management and responding to violent extremism.

More than 200 people from approximately 40 countries attend SPI each year. While the early years of SPI were geared more towards international participants, in recent years the program has also attracted local participants and responded to local situations.

“We want to support the efforts of local individuals in a variety of positions and occupations who are already engaged in addressing the hard topics in our communities,” said Christi Hoover Seidel, director of admissions for CJP. “We see SPI Community Day as an opportunity for support, expansion, and connection for those who are committed to peacebuilding, even if they don’t self-identify as ‘peacebuilders.’ Our goal is to offer practical tools to help sustain their work.”

The 72 participants in last year’s Community Day represented a wide range of professional interests: offender reentry, youth empowerment, adult career education, mediation, climate activism and filmmaking. More than half were from Harrisonburg, with the remainder from Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Workshops and presenters this year include:

• Transformative Leadership for Organizational Development, with Elizabeth Girvan, executive director of Skyline Literacy and , professor of organizational leadership, 91����Ƶ;
• How to be a Conflict Competent Leader, with , professor of applied social sciences, 91����Ƶ;
• Peace Education Prelude, with Ed Brantmeier, professor of education, JMU;
• Organizing Your Community for Change, with , professor of applied social sciences, 91����Ƶ;
• Building Resilience in Body, Mind and Spirit, with , director of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience program, 91����Ƶ;
• Mapping the Justice Needs of Your Community, with , professor and co-director of the Zehr Institute of Restorative Justice; and
• The Relational Importance of One-on-One Meetings, with , professor of Restorative Justice and Peacebuilding, 91����Ƶ.

Registration cost is $50 ($25 for students), and includes two workshops, a catered lunch, plus a $50 application fee waiver for SPI 2018.

Learn more about SPI Community Day .

Yarrow was on campus for a board meeting of , a bipartisan organization which uses dialogue processes to improve approaches to conflict among Americans across the political spectrum. The organization’s name refers to President Abraham Lincoln’s call to recognize commonalities in the midst of conflict, made during his first inaugural address on the eve of the Civil War in 1861.

SPI director says Yarrow’s presence on campus during the annual peacebuilding institute was “spontaneous serendipity.”

“We share with Peter a long-term commitment to social justice and peace, and are honored to have him and the board members of Better Angels here,” Goldberg added. “It’s a special opportunity for us and for SPI participants from around the world to hear his message of unity and humanity.”

Several other experts, each of whom work specifically in the context of conflict transformation, were on campus : author and speaker , who works in the area of race relations; , a globally recognized trainer on circle processes; and , a professor at James Madison University who specializes in peace education. , director of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience program, also offered a self-care course with Katie Ornelas.

Sharing and listening

A deep concern about civic diviseness and hostility in the United States led Goldberg and SPI faculty to this summer aimed at helping community members and organizations work in civic engagement, conflict facilitation and dialogue processes. This focus will continue in 2018 at SPI, Goldberg says.

Campt, a nationally recognized expert on race dialogue, led a course this week titled “Tough Conversations: Turning Conflict into Connectedness.” On Friday, Campt and his students facilitated a model deliberative dialogue process with SPI participants using polling technology and small group discussions.

Campt also offered a “white allies” Saturday, June 17, at Asbury Methodist Church. The event offers tools and strategies for white allies who want to help confront racism.

Listen to and watch about the June 17 workshop.

Earlier in the week, the Horizons of Change Luncheon Series hosted , a mediator, former Harrisonburg mayor and state congressional candidate. Degner spoke about the power of listening, rather than talking in dialogue, and his campaign, called the “Listening Corps,” to bring people together through facilitated dialogue.

Harmonizing with Peter Yarrow

Yarrow’s concert drew SPI participants and community members, some of whom had deep personal connections to the singer and his music.

Yarrow invited sharing, which led to a touching moment with Tom DeWolf, who works in interracial dialogue and healing as executive director of . The two men embraced, prompting DeWolf to tell Yarrow that they had hugged nearly 30 years before at a concert in Eugene, Oregon.

Yarrow deftly wove his own music, jokes, stories and shared singing into a nearly 90-minute concert that included favorites like “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “This Land is Your Land,” and “This Little Light of Mine.”

He also dedicated “Sweet Survivor” to , a research professor at 91����Ƶ’s , as well as Better Angels founder David Blankenhorn and senior fellow Bill Doherty.

“When we sing together, the mask drops away and I can hear your heart,” Yarrow told the audience.

With Better Angels, Yarrow has been traveling and singing with people of different political persuasions. The organization is hosting a summer bus tour, kicking off on July 4, which will make stops in communities around the country to host workshops bringing together Republicans and Democrats.

Learn more about .

The small-group skits were focused on inviting students to learn how their actions might be a result of an emotional response: how, for example, teasing Pakistani refugee Hayat Zahra, 16, about her hijab might be a result of their own discomfort in a new American culture.

“That was hard,” Zahra said later. Though the situation was only acting, her emotional response was visible to those around her. The students, refugees from Africa and the Middle East who are members of a leadership training program, were then able to talk about how words can hurt and how such hurt might cause other negative behaviors.

Harrisonburg High’s Peer Leaders program is a grant-funded project led by James Madison University’s (CISR), and involving partners Church World Service (CWS), 91����Ƶ and Harrisonburg High School. Funds for the 2016-17 academic year were provided from JMU’s Faculty Senate Vision Mini-Grant program.

The program began in spring 2015 with initial funding from CWS and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.

Teens are valued leaders

Though they may not have mastered English and may not realize their own influence, high school-age refugees are vital contributors and leaders within the high school community, said Rebecca Sprague, of CWS. “Building their knowledge about the school and community helps them be a resource to new refugees and their family members, as well as to our community. There are all different ways to be a leader, including helping to decide what kind of welcoming community the high school will be.”

Self-advocacy is another goal, said Laura Feichtinger-McGrath, ESL coordinator at the high school, “both for themselves and their peers … recognizing they can’t change the traumas of their past, and they all have traumas, but also not allowing their past experiences to cripple them or close doors to opportunities.”

Approximately 40 students participate in the program, all of whom have come to the Unites States to escape war, persecution or other dangers. Not every student comes to every weekly meeting, or every enrichment opportunity, Feichtinger-McGrath said.

Swahili speaker Kajungu Mturi, a graduate student at 91����Ƶ’s from Tanzania, and Felix Kioko, a Kenyan earning a second degree at 91����Ƶ, facilitate the group. Rabab Hassan, an Arabic-speaking teacher’s assistant from Iraq, and Valentina Sokolyuk, home-school liaison, lends her language skills. Paige Ober, CISR’s representative, attends each meeting and planning session.

“We want to develop a rooted sense that they are a part of the community here,” Feichtinger-McGrath said. “They have around them lots of adults with different perspectives and backgrounds that have their best interests at heart.”

Learning about themselves and moving between cultures

Monthly sessions alternate between providing information about community and school opportunities and group activities off-campus.

91����Ƶ resources were also tapped during a fall conflict and communication training with a CJP team that included Professor , Practice Director , Mturi and fellow graduate students Diana Tovar and Jalal Maqableh, and alumnus . In a day soon after the elections, when many questions had begun to surface, the group from CJP facilitated learning about “acting in, acting out, and acting with” to help students explore their questions and strategies for engagement.

The February workshop was focused on learning how the body responds to stress and how those responses can lead to unhelpful behaviors. Gloria Bafunye, a ninth-grader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, explained it as the difference “between head and heart, how sometimes you think something and your body is because of that.”

, director of the (STAR) program, facilitated the learning experience. She said she was inspired by the students’ sensitivity, insights and questions.

Mansfield typically works with adults. For this day with 30 high-schoolers, she drew upon her first experiences in peace education with an organization called Peace Games, which involved playing games and asking questions to invite young people to learn from their own embodied experience. Mansfield offered arts-based activities, small-group sharing and team-building experiences, and joined in when a student started an impromptu dance session during the lunch break.

Both Bafunye and Zahra mentioned the lunch-time dancing as a highlight, one occasion when even the newest student, who had only been at the high school for three days and spoke almost no English, enjoyed himself.