Sarah Roth Shank Archives - 91��Ƶ News

Enhance facilitation, leadership and organizational skills at SPI Community Day for area peacebuilders

Randi B. Hagi — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:12:04 +0000

91��Ƶ hosts the second annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) Friday, Feb. 17. It will offer workshops, networking and presentations for leaders and staff of local organizations to enhance their facilitation, community organizing and conflict transformation skills.

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

Since 1994, more than 3,000 people have attended SPI from more than 120 countries. While the early years of SPI were geared more towards international participants, there has been a push in the last few years to attract local participants and respond to local situations.

“This is a way to give more focus to the local community,” says , admissions director.

Last year, a middle school teacher, veteran, pastor and community kitchen manager were among the 65 regional peacebuilders in attendance at SPI Community Day. After “such a positive response” last year, Roth Shank says the maximum attendance has been increased to 80.

The event includes a breakfast presentation on community organizing by Dr. , professor of restorative justice; two 90-minute workshops, a lunch presentation and a networking event.

“The underlying focus is going to be community organizing and leading,” says Roth Shank. “In the current political climate … people are looking for ways to build bridges and be engaged.”

Workshop offerings include

Organizational Use of Circles, with Dr. ;
Leadership and Management for the Common Good, with Dr. ;
Conflict Coaching, with Dr. ;
Program and Project Management, with ;
Transforming Power of Identity and Dignity, with Dr. ;
Faith-Based Peacebuilding: Structuring Hope Locally, with The Rev. Roy Hange.

Participants will depart with deeper networks and valuable skills related to organizational leadership, says SPI Director , while also learning more about the resources of SPI and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

“I believe, as do many others, that in the coming years, communities are going to have to increasingly rely on their own organizations and service providers as there will be less help forthcoming from the federal government,” says Goldberg. “SPI Community Day is a great chance for 91��Ƶ to make better connections with these local providers, give them the skills they need to succeed and help them become better connected with each other.”

Farewell celebration for President Loren Swartzendruber and wife Pat highlights leadership during 13 years of service

Lauren Jefferson — Tue, 28 Jun 2016 17:45:34 +0000

University and college “presidents have to know about fundraising, enrollment, board governance, community and connection,” said Jennifer Braaten at Friday’s farewell celebration for President and his wife, Pat.

Swartzendruber is retiring after 13 years as 91��Ƶ president on June 30.

“… But I mean this,” Braaten added. “The most important thing is you have to love people, love the mission, have humor and humility. And isn’t that Loren? What an opportunity to say to this community, ‘You have experienced the best of college presidents.”

Braaten was among nine speakers at the gathering of 135 guests at the Spotswood Country Club celebration; she knows the college presidency well and will retire herself next month after 14 years in the role at Ferrum College in Virginia.

Robert Lambeth, president of Council of Independent Colleges of Virginia since 1983, also remarked on the great respect held for Swartzendruber among his colleagues, who voted him to a term as board chair in 2009-10.

Jonathan Alger, president of James Madison University, thanked Loren Swartzendruber for his warm hospitality.

Braaten and Lambeth joined James Madison University president Jonathan Alger in representing the higher education community. Alger remembered the warm welcome and hospitality the Swartzendrubers offered the Algers when they moved to the community in 2012. This relational style helped to strengthen the ongoing collaboration between the universities, he said. Alger also noted the joy their daughter has experienced as a chorister in 91��Ƶ’s .

The celebration included family, friends, past and current members of the board of trustees, and President’s Cabinet. Former presidents Myron Augsburger, with his wife Esther, and Joe Lapp, with his wife Hannah, were also in attendance, as well as Sara Wenger Shenk ‘75, president of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and her husband Gerald, and Jim Brenneman, president of Goshen College, and his spouse, Terry.

Though much of the evening was spent in laughter – Swartzendruber’s sense of humor being a characteristic warmly lauded by all speakers –Kay Nussbaum ’78, Board of Trustees chair, and Basil Marin, MDiv. ‘05, Mennonite Education Agency (MEA) board member, each presented lengthy resolutions in honor of the couple.

Andy Dula ’91, former board chair, commented that Swartzendruber always served “with dignity, precision and grace,” and offered thanks for remaining composed in the face of controversy over and over again and “for your mission, focus and passion.”

, MDiv. ’94, professor of Bible and religion, praised Swartzendruber’s “refusal to see a conflict between his love for the church and the work of the academy,” displayed in his giving of space to ask tough questions with the classroom and the academic community and his steadfast support of faculty “despite high personal cost.”

Loren Swartzendruber, left, with wife Pat enjoys the evening’s speakers.

“Over the years of Loren’s presidency, I remember feeling more and more assured and free to teach as I was led,” she added.

I Corinthians 13:4-7 was offered as a benediction by Kirk Shisler ‘81, vice president for advancement.

^��Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ^��It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ^��Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ^7��It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“These words and phrases we can all correlate to encounters we’ve had with you and we’ve observed in your relationship with parents, students, faculty and staff, alumni, donors, leaders of Mennonite church and other denominational leaders and our community. You have demonstrated this quality of Christ-centered love in your work and you’ve done it authentically … go with our gratitude and love.”

Those speaking in appreciation also included James Rosenberger ’68, chair of the 2003 Presidential Search Committee and former Mennonite Education Agency board member; Rick Stiffney, CEO of Mennonite Health Services Alliance; and ’10, a current 91��Ƶ employee who completed undergraduate and graduate degrees at 91��Ƶ and first met Swartzendruber as her high school graduation speaker at Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite High School.

In closing, Swartzendruber noted that his accomplishments listed on the resolutions were “built on the legacy of those who came before” and “with a team of people on campus.” He recognized Orville Yoder and Carlos Romero, former colleagues at Mennonite Education Agency; pastors Phil Kniss and Barbara Lehman, of Park View Mennonite Church; as well as family friends, Mim and Deryl Kennel, and Betty Brunk whose late husband, Truman, preached Loren’s ordination service in 1975.

Award-winning filmmaking shows powerful role of media in sparking deep conversations and social change

Andrew Jenner — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:10:41 +0000

In a new approach to promoting peaceful communities, graduate students at 91��Ƶ are leading conversation around an award-winning documentary about people who collaborated to paint massive murals in Philadelphia.

A unique twist to the documentary, Concrete, Steel and Paint, is that the painters include men incarcerated in a maximum-security prison as well as crime victims.

The filmmakers, Cindy Burstein and Tony Heriza, consulted with , distinguished professor of at , as they prepared to distribute the film. It covers the journey of these artists toward profound insights on the nature of crime – and reconciliation – during their collaboration, and explores how the criminal justice system affects everyone involved in the project.

After its 2009 release, Concrete, Steel and Paint found a wide audience within restorative justice circles. In 2012, Burstein and Heriza began working with CJP to use the film as a starting point for dialogue about using restorative practices to effect change on the wider social level that their film explores.

“Embedding our restorative justice work in peacebuilding is one of our unique niches,” said CJP professor , co-director of .

Carl Stauffer

While is often conceptualized on the personal level between individual victims and offenders, Stauffer said that CJP is equally interested in broader use of restorative practices to address violence caused by large structures like the criminal justice system.

Sarah Roth Shank and Jonathan Swartz, both , and two other classmates have led dialogues at several events where the film was shown, including the 2013 National Conference on Restorative Justice in Toledo, Ohio. Future students will have opportunity to continue leading similar dialogues around the film, both for practical facilitation experience and to explore the use of restorative practices to confront systemic injustice, Stauffer said.

The filmmakers’ enthusiasm for these dialogues began after they worked with Zehr to lead one at the Concrete, Steel and Paint premiere in Philadelphia. After seeing hundreds of strangers erupt into conversation with one another after the screening, they were inspired to continue exploring how their film could continue to spark conversation among and between crime victims, criminal justice reform advocates and other stakeholders, as well as motivate them into action.

CJP has incorporated the role of media and social change through dialogue into its curriculum. At its annual in 2014, two courses co-taught by 91��Ƶ professors and graduates of CJP will relate directly to these themes.

��“Media for Societal Transformation,” co-led by a veteran filmmaker on faculty, , and Danielle Taylor, MA ’13, will be held during SPI’s first session, May 5-13, 2014.
“The Impact of Social Issues of Restorative Justice” will be co-led by Stauffer and Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, MA ’09, during the second SPI session, May 15-23, 2014. (Read more about Sakho’s restorative justice work .)

In 2015, SPI will hold an intensive, three-week media camp for more advanced training in using film and social media for .

“Developing media and advocacy skills is important, because we know that documenting structural problems is key to changing the system,” said , CJP program director.

Stauffer said that CJP encourages people to think systemically, asking the key question, “What would it be like to make a whole system more aligned to restorative values and process?”

More information on these and other courses at SPI can be found on its .

Restorative justice highlighted by Gandhi Center award and state-wide mediation conference

Andrew Jenner — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 20:26:01 +0000

More than 100 members of the , the state’s largest professional association for mediators and mediation scholars, gathered on campus for a September 28-29 conference co-hosted by the .

and , co-directors of the , delivered the plenary address, entitled “Putting a Face on the ‘Other.’”

Four days later, Zehr was one of two recipients of the 2013 “,” conferred by the in a ceremony hosted by JMU President Jonathan R. Alger. The other recipient, Vida S. Huber, was a 1961 graduate of 91��Ƶ who chaired from 1967 to 1984 and then held leadership roles at JMU until her sudden death in 2005. The awards were given in recognition of the duo’s “visionary leadership and enduring commitment to the creation of a more compassionate, equitable and caring community.” Huber’s surviving husband, Harold, accepted her posthumous award.

91��Ƶ restorative justice experts Carl Stauffer (left) and Howard Zehr. (Photo by Jon Styer)

Evoking empathetic responses

At the state-wide mediation conference, Zehr and Stauffer, who is a CJP professor, spoke of how a process of “othering” – or increasing the social distance between people or groups – makes it easier for them to harm each other. They then contrasted the ways in which the traditional criminal justice system increases “othering” with the ways that restorative justice processes can reduce social distance and evoke empathic responses between victims and offenders.

Their presentation garnered an enthusiastic response from the audience of mediators, many of whom were hearing specifics about restorative justice’s objectives and techniques for the first time.

“It made a … light bulb go off in my head,” said Doreene Thomas, who wants to start a restorative justice program in Chesapeake, Va., where she mediates cases referred from local courts. “I see a huge need for it.”

Jennifer Phillips, a mediator from Richmond and the VMN president-elect, said the plenary session’s focus on restorative justice opened up a “new world” to her. “I’d heard of restorative justice, but this was the first time I’d been exposed to it like this.

“Hidden treasure”

“I had no idea that [so much] was available here,” Phillips continued, calling 91��Ƶ “a hidden treasure.”

Zehr and Stauffer also discussed the arts as a good peacebuilding tool for putting faces on “others.” Zehr shared photographs and stories from several of his books intended to humanize prisoners, crime victims and children with incarcerated parents. Stauffer told the audience about a project he worked on in South Africa, where two opposing factions in a violent conflict created films about their experiences. Once the two videos were completed, the two sides combined them into one film exploring the conflict’s roots, which was eventually screened before a mixed audience of people who had previously been unwilling to meet and discuss their differences.

“We think the arts have the power to engage people emotionally and intuitively [in ways] that other things don’t,” said Zehr. “They allow us to engage the ambiguity and complexity of the world.”

Nine CJP-linked presenters

Using the arts as a peacebuilding and conflict resolution tool was the subject of a separate session led by three CJP students – Sarah Roth Shank, Corie Custer and Jonathan Swartz.

Judith Tolleson Clarke, with a 2011 MA from CJP, was one of four panelists who discussed their experiences using “dialogue circles” as part of restorative justice processes within Virginia’s correctional facilities. Clarke, from Richmond, Va., is the executive director and founder of the Virginia Center for Restorative Justice.

Other CJP-affiliated presenters at the conference included professor emeritus Vernon Janzti, who co-led a session on trauma awareness for mediators, Barbie Fischer, a 2012 MA graduate of CJP, who spoke about family group conferencing, and Brenda Waugh, a lawyer from Winchester, Va., who graduated from CJP in 2009. Waugh was co-leader of a session on how the architecture and layout of a room can help or hinder a mediation process.

VMN President Paula Young said one of the reasons she wanted to hold the conference on the 91��Ƶ campus was to give mediators from the region exposure to the expertise in conflict resolution and peacebuilding resources present at 91��Ƶ.

“[CJP has] a particularly strong program with particularly strong scholars who can introduce our members to a lot of conflict theory that they might not otherwise get,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing but positive things [from attendees] about being here.”

Shared desire to reduce violence, increase justice

Members of the VMN attended the conference to receive continuing education credits to maintain their certification as mediators, as well as for more informal professional development and networking.

“The sessions have been wonderful,” said Ron Williams, a retired attorney and a relatively new mediator who said the opportunity to learn from more experienced mediators was valuable.

Young said that because some VMN members have long experience as mediators, she wanted to develop a program that would keep them engaged by looking in-depth at challenging and engaging topics – something accomplished by tapping the expertise of the “distinguished scholars” at CJP.

“It was a great pleasure to host the VMN conference on campus,” said CJP professor and program director . “The questions and conversation in response to the plenary talk by Howard Zehr and Carl Stauffer indicate that we need to continue our conversation with members of VMN. We seem to have a lot of shared concerns and similar commitments to reducing violence and increasing justice in our communities.”

Sarah Roth Shank Archives - 91����Ƶ News