Krause, a resident of Harrisonburg, Virginia, has worked on federal capital cases throughout the United States for the past 19 years. Her involvement in the legal profession began as a graduate student at CJP, when she joined at the invitation of capital defense attorneys to work with victims of the Oklahoma City bombings.

Since then, she has pioneered defense-victim outreach, known as DVO, in which an independent intermediary seeks to build professional relationships between the defense attorneys and the victim’s family in an effort to ensure that victim concerns are addressed. Her work with the Department of Justice has included several high-profile cases, including the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui.

“Tammy is among those graduates who have taken restorative justice into areas well beyond anything I had imagined,” said Zehr, who has been both a mentor and colleague. “In creating and practicing this work, she drew heavily upon and integrated what she had learned about restorative justice and peacebuilding at CJP. In my estimation, she represents much of what we hope from our graduates. As a pioneer and leader in a new field of justice and peace building, she is very deserving of this recognition.”

The CJP Alumni Award for Outstanding Service is given annually “to CJP alumni who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to CJP’s mission of supporting conflict transformation, restorative justice, trauma healing, development, organizational leadership and peacebuilding efforts at all levels of society,” according to , CJP executive director.

The was conferred in 2015 to Ali Gohar, MA ’02, founder and executive director of in Pakistan.

All of the 450 alumni who have earned master’s degrees or graduate certificates in conflict transformation from CJP are eligible.

Krause will accept the award this summer during a luncheon event at the .

‘An incredible opportunity to help’

The catalyst for Krause’s involvement – indeed for the creation of her profession – was a phone call to Zehr from attorney Dick Burr, then a lead attorney on the defense team of Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was accused (and later convicted and executed) of planning the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, in which 168 people were killed and hundreds injured.

“I found it difficult … not to be able to interact in any fashion and to absorb the enormous grief and loss and pain that came into the courtroom through these innocent people,” Burr recounts in a 2013, “and I pledged not to have it happen that way again, on whatever capital case I was involved in.”

In March of 1997, midway through the trial, Burr reached out to Zehr, an expert in restorative practices, to explore some way of interacting with victims. Krause was eventually drawn into the case: her first experience as liaison (only a few victims agreed to speak with the defense by phone) for three months until the end of the trial became her practicum.

91����Ƶ six months after the conclusion of the trial, Krause returned to Oklahoma City to meet some of the family members she had only spoken with by phone. What she learned from them was disconcerting: “They thought the government would give them answers by going to trial, but because Timothy McVeigh never talked, they had less information. It was even worse for them because they had these hopes for the trial and they were never realized.”

Zehr and Krause eventually facilitated a meeting between defense lawyers and victims’ families – the outcome of which led to Krause beginning to work on the concept full-time. “It was in talking to the people and hearing their stories of their suffering and their fear, but also of their resilience, and the questions they had about why – that convinced me.” Krause recalled. “It was an incredible opportunity to help.”

Between victims and justice

Over the next several years, with the help of Zehr, the CJP community and Dick Burr, Krause developed a model and best practices. A Soros Justice Fellowship in 1999 and an in 2001 helped her promote the model within the judicial system and build a network of trained liaisons. From 2003 to 2007, she worked as a victim outreach coordinator for the federal public defenders.

Krause now holds a PhD in law at the University of Manchester, and since returning from a four-year stay in England, has continued her work with the federal government in victim outreach.

Her choice has not been easy: it took four years away, while she was in England, to recover from the 10 years she had spent working with victims: while many details are confidential, Krause can share that much of what she does is “sitting with pain, holding pain.”

“Often in law, we deflect those emotions, we diminish or exacerbate pain, but we don’t just let it be. That’s my job and it’s not easy to do. Hearing this stuff, the inhumanity of these acts, the grief – it rips you apart.”

She interacts with people who have lost loved ones and who are struggling to understand not only what happened but why it happened and the motivations of the person or people who made it happen. She also helps victims and survivors understand the process of law, which can seem arbitrary, unintelligible and unfair.

“It is never about you,” Krause said. “You have to constantly ask that, to check in with yourself when you’re out there doing this work. Am I doing harm?”

She’s deeply appreciative of the award, she said, and humbled by the honor from a place that remains a source of sustenance and strength. “CJP’s teaching of the reflective practitioner has given me a place to come to where people are asking those same questions: am I doing this right? There’s a bond created in that integrity, in that honesty of trying to figure that out. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

Many names were tossed at the night of May 23, as his writing career and restorative justice work were humorously honored with a “roast” at 91����Ƶ. While most retiring professors of �ܱ���’s stature and worldwide celebrity are feted with a more standard banquet, a roast more suited both the man and his varied work.

More than 300 attendees agreed, traveling from around the world to honor �ܱ���’s influence as a reformer, teacher, a mentor, and visionary; to mark his retirement as a full-time faculty member; and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of �ܱ���’s groundbreaking work, .

The evening also provided an opportunity to support the ongoing work of the , of which Zehr will remain a co-director with friend and colleague . A silent auction of global artifacts, artwork, locally crafted food and libations, and books, along with other donations, also raised about $15,000, not including pledges, for the continued work of the Zehr Institute.

After dinner…

Among comedians, a “roast” is a gathering at which a guest of honor is subjected to both praise and good-natured jokes at their expense. Stauffer, dressed in a suit and tie, emceed the evening’s festivities with , a longtime colleague since �ܱ���’s arrival at the in 1996. Jantzi came more appropriately appareled to the podium in the requested “Howard Zehr-styled formal wear:” boots, tan khakis, a tan shirt, a camera slung about his neck and a Indiana Jones-looking hat.

When queried by Stauffer about his neckwear, Jantzi looked at his floral tie and retorted: “This is a tie that’s as ugly as sin. I tried to get one as ugly as Howard would wear, but this is the best I could do.”

First on the program was a panel of alumni roasters, all of whom remarked in some capacity on their strong and shared personal friendship with Zehr, his sense of humor, and quiet way of inspiring confidence and empowerment. Among them was , MA ‘08, now restorative justice coordinator at the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General in Vancouver, Canada, who spoke of becoming �ܱ���’s student one day and shortly after, accepting an invitation to co-present with Zehr at a conference.

“Howard sees something in you before you see it in yourself and he nurtures it until it comes to fruition,” said , MA ‘99, a 14-year veteran of working federal capital cases who is herself a pioneer of an approach called defense-oriented victim outreach.

The youngest member of the panel, MA ‘13, spoke of the in her native Mexico, between Zehr – in Tamaulipas to present the keynote address at the First National Conference of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms – and poet and victims advocate Javier Sicilia, “two men who share similar bodies and souls.”

MA ‘04, contextualized Zehr with a reference to Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” which describes three types of “change makers.” “Howard for me is the consummate connector,” said Malec, citing Zehr’s skills in networking between practitioners and connecting his colleagues and students with exciting opportunities.

MA ‘09, took the microphone in “protest” to argue that the breadth and sheer vivacity of Zehr’s creative contributions in a variety of fields do not render him “the grandfather of restorative justice,” as he’s sometimes referred to, but rather “the Lady Gaga of restorative justice!”

, MA ‘06, a founding member of the nonprofit Latino Initiative on Restorative Justice, spoke movingly of �ܱ���’s influence on her personal journey from her native Ecuador and her current work as an educator and training of restorative justice in many Latin American countries.

, which focused on the aging body, took the brunt of several spirited jokes from , MA ‘00. Toews is a former student who has written and co-edited .

Guest Roasters

A panel of guest roasters included nine distinguished colleagues, some of whom wrote or provided video greetings: RJ practitioner honored �ܱ���’s influence in New Zealand, criminologist John Braithwaite sent congratulations from Australia, and �ܱ���’s longtime friend, Bruce Bainbridge, did the same from the State Correction Institution Graterford, where he is serving a life sentence.

, currently co-director of Mennonite Central Committee‘s Office on Justice and Peacebuilding, proclaimed that she had “30 years of stories” to fit into the next three minutes, speeding through Zehr’s powers of suggestion, his fast pace of speech, and his commitment to well-made coffee.

Actor, director, and playwright Ingrid DeSanctis remembered ,” based on Zehr’s book which received a standing ovation from 500 inmates at Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania.

, a mediator and consultant with a history of teaching in Center for Justice and Peacebuilding programs, proclaimed that he and Zehr shared something that nobody else in the room did: both are alumni of Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, which boasts graduates such as Martin Luther King Jr.

“You carry the mystique of a Morehouse man well,” said Hooker, adding that the “Morehouse man” is “well-read, well-traveled, well-spoken, well-balanced and…” He stopped. “You’ve got to work on well-dressed,” he concluded, to laughter from the crowd.

Kim Workman, director of the New Zealand-based organization Rethinking Crime and Punishment, not only told humorous stories, but played the keyboard and sang an original ditty he called “Ode to Howard.”

The Zehr bobble-head

As the evening drew to a close, �ܱ���’s family joined in the fun. His wife, Ruby, recalled one of their first dates in college, when Howard invited her to the snack shop to share a Coke because he did not have enough money for two. She was followed by Howard’s brother, Ed Zehr, who reminisced about Howard’s boyhood skills tinkering with electronics and gadgets.

When Zehr assumed the stage after 9 p.m., he was met with a standing ovation. Cracking jokes, he recounted the early days of restorative justice work with Canadian colleague David Worth, announcing their next 50-year plan for the field – expansion to a social movement.

At the end of the night, , director of the and mastermind behind the festivities, presented the honoree with a custom Howard Zehr bobble-head doll.

“Ruby says my memorial service is taken care of, so she won’t need to have one when I die,” Zehr reflected afterwards. “I got off pretty easy overall!”