And those SPI alumni who aren’t aiming to earn a degree? Some of them just keep coming back year after year – almost as an educational vacation – or they send their colleagues and friends to SPI.

Of the 2,800 SPI participants over the last 19 years, more than one in five have been repeat participants, taking courses during a second year or even multiple years of SPI. In that number must be counted almost all of CJP’s 398 master’s degree alumni, plus 91 graduate certificate holders. Some of their MA classmates are now SPI instructors, plus many of their professors have taught at SPI year after year.

Detouring six hours to reconnect

Among the first drop-bys to SPI 2014 were Florina Benoit and Ashok Gladston of India, both 2004 MA grads from CJP and now PhD-holders. They made a six-hour round-trip detour from a family-related stop in Baltimore, Maryland, to say “hello” to folks at SPI.

Gladston was last at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ in June 2011 when he gave a heart-wrenching talk at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ centering on women from a minority group in southern India who were being violently victimized by mobs from the surrounding majority group.

The two, both former Fulbright Scholars married to each other, happened to arrive on May 7 when Doreen Ruto of Kenya, a 2006 MA graduate, was the featured SPI “Frontier Luncheon” speaker, along with her colleague (and son) Richy Bikko, a 2011 BA graduate who majored in justice, peace and conflict studies.

Over that day, Gladston and Benoit interacted with a dozen professors, staffers and alumni whom they recalled from their studies at CJP 10 years ago.

When the day turned to evening and their borrowed car was found to have a non-working headlight, they lingered for activities very familiar to them – a community “potluck” meal, followed by a cultural program led by SPI participants, and informal dancing. (They huddled with this writer for much of that time answering questions about their work in India – but more on that later.)

They then accepted the impromptu invitation of Margaret Foth, a retiree who has been a long-time liaison with CJP alumni, and slept in a guest room at the Foths’ home, adjacent to 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

 “It was like we recalled from our time as graduate students,” says Benoit. “We felt like we were visiting our second home.”

In 2013, Gladstone and Benoit had been scheduled to teach an SPI course on the logistics of humanitarian aid – more specifically, on how such aid intersects with peacebuilding practices, including the “do no harm” principle – but, unfortunately, that year the number of people seeking such training was insufficient to hold the course.

Always more to learn

A third former Fulbright Scholar, Shoqi Abas Al-Maktary, MA ’07, took a break from his job as country director in Yemen for Search for Common Ground and spent May 15-23 taking the SPI course “Designing Peacebuilding Programs – From Conflict Assessment to Planning. ”

“I don’t think anyone in this field can afford to stop being a student,” says Al-Maktary, who holds a second master’s degree in security management from Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. “There is always more to know, more to explore with others in the field. And SPI – with its intensive courses – is a great place to do this.”

Thomas DeWolf of the United States just finished attending his fourth SPI in six years, with the course “Media for Societal Transformation.” He first came in 2008 where he explored Coming to the Table (explained in next paragraph). He returned for a restorative justice course in 2009, and then in 2012, received a scholarship to take “Healing the Wounds of History: Peacebuilding through Transformative Theater.”

DeWolf’s connection to SPI began with CJP’s sponsorship of Coming to the Table, an organization focused on addressing the enduring impact of the slavery era in the United States. DeWolf has played a leading role in this organization, which held its annual conference at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ this year, over a weekend between two sessions of SPI.

Seven times at SPI

A 76-year-old clinical psychologist from Argentina, Lilian Burlando, has an astonishing record of attendance at SPI, having attended about a third of all the years SPI has been held. From her home at the southern-most tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego, Burlando has attended SPI seven times: in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Often with her, also taking classes, have been members of her family of five children and 19 grandchildren. One of her daughters, Maria Karina Echazu, for instance, is a prosecuting attorney in Argentina who took a restorative justice course in 2007 and a practice course in 2011.

Burlando calls SPI “a refreshing experience,” citing interesting course topics, excellent professors and the sense of community. “To me,” she says, “SPI has been a fountain of intellectual and spiritual enrichment.”

Almost all the teachers at SPI – even those like Johonna McCants, who holds a PhD from the University of Maryland – have also been students at SPI at some point. McCants explains how she found her way to SPI:

In 2009, while finishing my doctoral dissertation, I began searching online for practical training in the issues I was writing about. I discovered CJP and SPI and quickly fell in love. I was attracted by the integration of theory and practice, the variety of courses, the diversity of participants, backgrounds of the instructors, and that the program was housed at a Christian university. I participated in Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) at SPI just a few weeks after receiving my PhD. The STAR experience, which was phenomenal, kept me coming back for more.

McCants brought along a first-timer to SPI 2014, Julian Turner. These two, who first met as teenagers, would be married in a month. But first Turner, who works at an infectious disease clinic in Washington D.C., soaked up the wisdom of Hizkias Assefa in “Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” while McCants co-taught with Carl Stauffer “Restorative Justice: The Promise, the Challenge.”

Loves the diverse people

From her base as a high school teacher in a public school in Washington D.C. – and with experience as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland – McCants says she is struck by the egalitarian learning community formed by SPI, where the instructors and participants respect and learn from each other.

Her favorite part about SPI?

Definitely, the people! I enjoy learning from people from different parts of the United States and countries all over the world, hearing their stories and developing new relationships. I also like reuniting and reconnecting with people I’ve met during previous times at SPI.

Discovering SPI on the internet, as McCants did, is not typical. More often, SPI participants are encouraged to attend by previous participants.

Libby Hoffman, president and founder of the Catalyst for Peace foundation, for example, attended SPI in 1996 and took another CJP course in 2000. This year she dispatched two rising leaders of Fambul Tok – an organization doing amazing work of promoting post-war reconciliation throughout Sierra Leone – to take two successive courses at SPI. Micheala Ashwood and Emmanuel Mansaray both took “Leading Healthy Organizations,” in addition to “Analysis – Understanding Conflict” and “Psychosocial Trauma,”
respectively.

Ten CJP master’s degree alumni had teaching roles at SPI 2014: Dr. Sam Gbaydee Doe, MA ’98; Dr. Barb Toews,   MA ’00; Dr. Carl Stauffer, MA ’02; Elaine Zook Barge, MA ’03; Roxy Allen Kioko, MA ’07 (PhD candidate); Paulette Moore, MA ’09 (PhD candidate); Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, MA ’09 (PhD candidate); Caroline Borden, MA ’12; Soula Pefkaros, MA ’10 (PhD candidate); and Danielle Taylor, MA ’13. < — Bonnie Price Lofton

She was honored with the Nobel Prize for her work to end the long civil war in her native Liberia. Gbowee’s involvement in the peace movement began in the late 1990s, when she began volunteering with a trauma healing program in the war-torn capital, Monrovia. (CJP professor played a key role in this program, as did one of CJP’s earliest graduates, , MA ’98, who served as a mentor to Gbowee.)

Within a few years, Gbowee had become a leader of a grassroots women’s movement, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Using demonstrations, sit-ins and other nonviolent tactics, the group eventually forced the country’s warring factions to negotiate and sign a peace agreement in 2003.

Gbowee is one of the main characters in the 2008 documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, about this movement to end the Liberian civil war. She is also the author of a memoir about her life and activism during the war, Mighty Be Our Powers.

She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female African head of state, and Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni peace activist.

In 2011 – months before the Nobel Peace Laureates were announced – Gbowee was named .” She spoke several times at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s homecoming weekend that fall, just days after learning that she’d won the Nobel Prize. (.)

This year’s commencement will have an important personal component for Gbowee as well – her oldest child, Joshua Mensah, will graduate with a bachelor of arts in digital media. Gbowee has said that .

Gbowee is spending the 2013-14 academic year as a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College in New York. She is the founder and president of the , which supports education and leadership development in Liberia, and a co-founder of both the and the , a global peacebuilding and reconciliation organization. She also serves as an , working on the international nonprofit’s campaigns against poverty and injustice, and as a board member of the and the .

91¶ĚĘÓƵ will confer 481 degrees at its 2014 commencement, including 210 earned through its traditional undergraduate program, 146 awarded through its , 117 from its graduate programs, and eight through the offered at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s Lancaster, Pa., site.

For this highly prestigious award conferred on African women, Doe was chosen as the sole representative of Liberia, her home country. She is the daughter of Felicia Politee and Sam Gbaydee Doe. Her father, employed by the , holds from 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

“The 2013 Fellows are between the ages of 19 and 25, but are already actively leading change on pertinent issues, both at the grassroots and international level,” said a news release from the Milead Fellows program. “From poverty to women’s economic empowerment, environmental justice and political participation, this new generation of African women leaders are proof that Africa can produce the bold, visionary and inspirational leadership needed to lift Africa to its rightful place on the global stage.”

Samfee Doe double-majored in and at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ and is now enrolled in St. George’s University in Grenada, pursuing both a medical degree and a master’s in public health. The Milead Fellowship requires her to attend a three-week leadership conference in Ghana, plus conduct a project to benefit the country she represents. Doe likely will be juggling a year-long public health project in Liberia with clinical rotations in the United States, which she expects to begin in the spring of 2014.

In 2011-12, Doe was accepted into the Keith B.Taylor Global Scholar program, which enabled her to spend a year at The University of Northumbria in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England. There she focused on how the national health service works in the United Kingdom.

Samfee was one of 10 students in her graduating year to be selected for 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s top honor, the , awarded for “outstanding contributions to the university, community or society.” In addition to her academic achievements, she was a standout runner on 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s track and field team.

“91¶ĚĘÓƵ courses prepared me well for medical school,” she said in an email to . “I wrote my advisor [] thanking her after the first month of school.”