2012 Instructors

A-B C-H M-R S-Y
Alma Abdul-hadi Jadallah
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz
Hizkias Assefa
Elaine Zook Barge
Catherine Barnes
Caroline Borden
David Brubaker		 Mark Chupp
Koila Costello-Olsson
Sam Gbaydee Doe
Al Fuertes
Roy Hange
Barry Hart
David Anderson Hooker		 Nick Martin
Charles Martin-Shields
Dan Maxwell
Reina Neufeldt
Gloria Rhodes
Mark Rogers		 Lisa Schirch
Carl Stauffer
Armand Volkas
Cheryl Woelk
Marshall Yoder

Dr. Alma Abdul-hadi Jadallah is founder, President and Managing Director of the award winning woman firm Kommon Denominator, Inc. In that capacity, she has advised, designed and delivered highly successful small and large-scale interventions in corporate, community and international settings on strategic projects related to conflict prevention and mitigation, training and education, women’s leadership development, and capacity-building on the national and international levels. As an educator, she teaches graduate level courses on conflict resolution practice and theory and protracted conflicts in lead academic institutions in the US and around the world. Dr. Abdul-hadi Jadallah earned her Ph.D. from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University and currently serves as a member of the Institute’s advisory board. Her dissertation research titled “Reflections on Practice: The Impact of 9/11 on Conflict Resolvers” focused on the impact of a critical event – 9/11 – on the practice of conflict resolvers.

Teaching: Practice: Skills for Peacebuilding

Lorraine is the co-director of the Office on Justice & Peacebuilding for Mennonite Central Committee. She serves as consultant and trainer for restorative justice programs having a victim offender mediation component and has worked in the field of victim offender mediation since 1984. She has co-authored a curriculum entitled “Victim Offender Conferencing in Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Justice System”, and two books, The Little Book of Restorative Discipline for Schools and What will happen to me? Stutzman Amstutz is the author of The Little Book of Victim Offender Conferencing. She received her BS in social work from Eastern Mennonite University, where in 2002 she was awarded the Distinguished Service Award and holds a master of social work from Marywood University.

Co-teaching: Restorative Justice: the Promise, the Challenge

Hizkias is Professor of Conflict Studies (SPI only) at Eastern Mennonite University and is an active peacebuilding practitioner and trainer in many parts of the world. Operating out of his base in Nairobi, Kenya, he has worked as a mediator and facilitator of reconciliation processes at the political and community levels in a number of civil wars in Africa, Latin America, and Asia including Rwanda, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Israel/Palestine, and Guatemala. He has most recently worked in the mediation between the government and the opposition parties involved in the election-sparked violence in Kenya and in the insurgency in the Casamance region of Senegal. Assefa served as a consultant to the United Nations, the European Union, and international and national NGOs on conflict resolution and peacebuilding under situations of humanitarian disaster. He holds an LLM from Northwestern University, MS in economics and a PhD. in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.

Teaching: Philosophy and Praxis of Reconciliation

Elaine is the director of STAR: Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience, an integrated training program of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. During the 1980s and 1990s she worked in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala with Mennonite Central Committee. In her work with communities in conflict zones, she experienced firsthand violence, conflict, poverty, and resilience. She facilitates STAR trainings at EMU, throughout the US, and in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. Elaine holds a Master of Arts in Conflict Transformation (2003) and a Bachelors of Science in Nutrition/Community Development (1984) from Eastern Mennonite University.

Co-teaching: STAR Level 1

Catherine Barnes is Associate Professor of Strategic Peacebuilding and Public Policy at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. With almost twenty years’ experience working with various non-governmental organizations in more than 30 countries, Catherine’s practical engagement in peacebuilding has included:

  • Interactive process design and dialogue facilitation, strategic planning and collaborative learning, including large-scale conferences and more intimate deliberative dialogue processes;
  • Teaching, training and coaching in peace processes, conflict transformation, dialogue, problem solving, leadership development and empowerment for social action;
  • Policy research, policy dialogue and advocacy on issues connected to war-to-peace transition processes, political negotiation, statebuilding, and civil society roles in peacebuilding.
  • Program and project development and proposal preparation; strategic reviews and evaluation;

Specializing in learning from war-to-peace transition processes, she edited Owning the process: public participation in peacemaking; Powers of persuasion: incentives, sanctions and conditionality in peace processes; and The politics of compromise: the Tajikistan peace process as part of Conciliation Resources’ Accord series. She has also published on civil society roles in peacebuilding, on issues related to statebuilding, conflict prevention, genocide and minority rights, as well as several training manuals on leadership, conflict resolution, negotiation, and advocacy skills. She is a programmed associate with Conciliation Resources and served as special advisor to the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). She holds a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Teaching: Analysis: Understanding Conflict

Caroline graduated from George Mason University with a MA in education and from the College of William & Mary with a BA in Spanish. She is working as a testing coordinator and instructor at IEP and also doing her practicum at the Practice and Training Institute of EMU as part of her MA in Conflict Transformation. She has taught English for Language Learners for over six years in various settings. Caroline enjoys writing, hiking and cooking. Some of her favorite places in the world are Berlin; Germany, Bethlehem; Palestine and Harrisonburg; Virginia. She speaks Spanish and German well and is slowly learning Arabic.

Co-teaching: Intensive English for Peacebuilding

Mark is assistant professor and teaches community development at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University. He also directs the East Cleveland Partnership, a multi-institutional initiative to support the revitalization of East Cleveland. His work over the past 25 years has focused on community building and inter-group conflict transformation. Mark is an international consultant and trainer in civic engagement, appreciative inquiry, and conflict transformation, having worked in Northern Ireland, Egypt, Columbia, and throughout Central America and Mexico. He provided leadership in the establishment of the Culture of Peace Program as part of an effort to create a UN Local Zone of Peace in post-war El Salvador. Mark holds a Ph.D. in social welfare from Case Western Reserve University, a Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree from Goshen College. He has published numerous theory and practice oriented articles, manuals and book chapters. He has conducted numerous action research projects, including a project in a town in El Salvador suffering from gang conflict, a race-relations project in Cleveland, and a violence prevention effort in Indiana.

Teaching: Community Organizing in the 21st Century

Koila is one of the founding members of the Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, based in Suva, Fiji Islands. She is currently the Director for PCP. She has facilitated trainings and processes in the area of Change management, Stress management and trauma healing and peacebuilding for the private sector, regional agencies, community, the Churches and the security forces in Fiji. She has also done work in Tonga, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. Her work has also included working more specifically with organizational development in multi-cultural settings over the last couple of years. She has qualifications in social work, social policy and administration and is an alumnus of the CJP Masters program in Conflict transformation and Peacebuilding. She is a co-instructor at the Pacific Peacebuilders Training Intensive at the Pacific Theological College in August each year. She has co-facilitated for the UNDP Pacific Centre Community of Practice for Peace and Development.

Co-teaching: Leadership for Healthy Organizations

Sam Gbaydee Doe, PhD, is a Policy Advisor for the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery of the United Nations Development Programmed in New York. Prior to this, he was a Development and Reconciliation Advisor with the United Nations Resident Coordination Office in Colombo, Sri Lanka and the International Consultant for Evaluation and Strategic Coordination with the UN Mission in Liberia, as well as a Senior Conflict Prevention and Civil Society Development Expert with the Pacific Regional Center of UNDP in Fiji. Before joining the UN system, Dr. Doe served as founding Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding—currently the largest peacebuilding civil society network in Africa—and became one of the pioneers for civil society conflict early warning work in Africa. He was also Chair of the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER), a global network of conflict early warning scholars and practitioners based in London, and co-founder and chair of International Conflict and Security (INCAS) Consulting in London. In the last 20 years Dr. Doe has lectured and delivered numerous courses on peacebuilding, civil society development, conflict sensitive development, early warning, and monitoring and evaluation at a number of universities and training institutions in Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. He holds a PhD in Social and International Affairs from the University of Bradford, an MA in Conflict Transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, and a BSc in Economics from the University of Liberia.

Teaching: Conflict Sensitive Development & Peacebuilding

Dr. Al Fuertes is an assistant professor at New Century College, George Mason University (GMU) where he teaches courses in Refugee and Internal Displacement, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Divided Communities, Spirituality and Conflict Transformation, and Conflict, Trauma, and Healing. Dr. Fuertes specializes in community-based trauma healing as an integral component of peacebuilding. He travels to communities affected by war, armed conflict, and natural disaster and works with government, religious, military, and community leaders, as well as NGO development workers, school administrators, teachers, youth, refugees, and internally displaced persons. Dr. Fuertes was a recipient of the 2008 GMU Teaching Excellence Award and the 2001 AT&T Asia-Pacific Leadership Award. He is the author of the book, Community-Based Warviews, Resiliency and Healing: The Case of the Internally Displaced Persons in Mindanao and the Karen Refugees on the Thai-Burmese Border. Dr. Fuertes holds a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Teaching: Understanding Psychosocial Trauma

Roy spent 10 years in the Middle East working in the encounter zones between Islam, Eastern Christianity, and Western Christianity. He worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Egypt (1982-1985); was the first MCC Country Representative in Syria (1991-97); and with his family, lived in Qom, Iran in 1998 and engaged in high-level religious dialogue. He brings to the task of peacebuilding a decade of local knowledge of conflict dynamics in the Middle East, thirty years of tracking religious identity and conflict, and years of peacebuilding encounters in Muslim, Christian and political contexts. He continues to teach, speak and write on the subject of faith-based peacebuilding in national and international settings. He is an ordained minister in the Mennonite church, co-pastor of Charlottesville Mennonite Church and overseer of the Harrisonburg District of the Virginia Mennonite Conference. He holds an MDiv from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana.

Barry Hart professor of trauma, identity and conflict studies at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. He has worked in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Somaliland as well as Northern Ireland and Haiti. His work in the former Yugoslavia included conflict transformation and prejudice reduction training and psychosocial consultation. Dr. Hart recently did a major tolerance assessment in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is currently the academic director of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University and was the academic director of the Caux Scholars Program in Caux, Switzerland for the last 14 years, finishing that role in the summer of 2010. Dr. Hart is the author of the book, Peacebuilding in Traumatized Societies. He holds a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University

Teaching: Identity and Conflict Transformation

David Anderson Hooker is an Associate Professor of conflict studies at Eastern Mennonite University. He also serves Senior Fellow for Community Engagement Strategies at the University of Georgia’s Fanning Institute for Public Service and Outreach. For more than 30 years Hooker has been a mediator, facilitator, and community organizer. He has worked throughout the United States, focusing on issues of environmental justice, post riot racial reconciliation, community development, democratization, and multiparty conflict resolution. Hooker has also worked in Bosnia/Croatia, Cuba, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somalia, Southern Sudan, and Zimbabwe. He holds a law degree (JD) from Emory University’s School of Law, a Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) from the Candler School of Theology, Masters of Public Health (MPH) and public Administration (MPA) from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, a Masters of Minority Mental Health from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BS from Morehouse College.

Nick is the Co-founder and President of TechChange. As President, he oversees all strategy and programming for the organization. Nick is an educator, technologist, and social entrepreneur with significant international peacebuilding and development expertise. He is an adjunct faculty member at American University, George Mason University, George Washington University and the United Nations University for Peace (UPEACE), and has given a number of guest lectures and speeches on the role of technology in peacebuilding, development and humanitarian work. Nick is the founder of two innovative and award-winning digital media and conflict transformation programs: DCPEACE and PeaceRooms. In 2009, Nick was selected as a Global Fellow by the International Youth Foundation and as a Washington DC Humanities Council Scholar for his leadership in launching the programs and his track record as a young social entrepreneur. Nick received his BA with honors from Swarthmore College and an MA in Peace Education from the United Nations mandated University for Peace (UPEACE).

Co-teaching: Technology for Peacebuilding and Good Governance

Charles is the Project and Simulation Design manager for TechChange. He brings expertise in simulation design and analytic methodology to TechChange, with an interest in how mobile technology applications can positively impact governance and economic development. Prior to TechChange, Charles worked for the U.S. Institute of Peace in the Education and Training program and later the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. He worked on instructional design and development of courses on conflict analysis, economics and cultural adaptability that are now taught to staff members from the State Department, USAID, the U.S. Military, and the Private Sector. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Samoa, and has experience in defense contracting.

Charles is currently a doctoral student at George Mason University’s School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, where his research will focus on social resiliency and conflict mitigation. He completed an MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in 2010 and holds a BA in German Studies, both from American University.

Co-teaching: Technology for Peacebuilding and Good Governance

Dan Maxwell joined the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University in 2006 to lead the research program in food security and livelihoods in complex emergencies and to teach in the area of humanitarian studies. Prior to coming to Tufts, he was the Deputy Regional Director for CARE International in Eastern and Central Africa, based in Nairobi. His recent research has focused on famine response in conflict, food security and livelihoods in protracted crises, disaster risk reduction, and the politicization of humanitarian response. He is the co-author, with Chris Barrett of Cornell University, of the recent book, Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting Its Role (2005); and more recently co-authored with Peter Walker, Shaping the Humanitarian World (2009). In 2010, he was the external co-author and editor of the 2010 FAO/WFP Report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010 (SOFI). He holds a B.Sc. Degree from Wilmington College, a Master’s Degree from Cornell, and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin.

Teaching: Humanitarian Action in Conflict and Complex Emergencies

Reina is currently an Assistant Professor at American University. She is a scholar-practitioner whose work focuses on peacebuilding, development, and ethno-religious conflict. She has worked on peace and justice issues with non-governmental organizations since 1994. Between 2000 and 2007, Neufeldt supported peacebuilding capacity building, design, monitoring, evaluation and learning at Catholic Relief Services. From 2005-2007, she was based in Southeast Asia as CRS’ Regional Technical Advisor for Peacebuilding. Neufeldt has co-authored “Peacebuilding: A Caritas Training Manual” (2001) and “Reflective Peacebuilding: A Planning, Monitoring and Learning Toolkit” (2007). She holds a PhD in International Relations from the School of International Service, American University.

Co-teaching: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Gloria Rhodes is associate professor of peacebuilding and conflict studies at EMU, where she chairs the department of Applied Social Sciences and coordinates the Peacebuilding and Development undergraduate program. She teaches peacebuilding theory and practice (including mediation and group facilitation) and conflict theory and analysis. She has served as Administrative Director of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute and as a program assistant for the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. She has led semester and summer cross cultural programs in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Russia. Her areas of expertise include peacebuilding curriculum development and pedagogy, conflict analysis, practice-related research, group facilitation and mediation, and cross cultural education. She holds a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Teaching: Peacebuilding for Practitioners

Mark is an experienced program evaluator, facilitator, trainer, mediator, program designer, and peacebuilder who has led external evaluations of peacebuilding programs in Ethiopia, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the South Caucus. He worked on internal peacebuilding evaluations in Burundi and the DRC and development evaluations in Liberia and El Salvador. Mark worked on assessment teams in Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Uganda and Kyrgyzstan. He served as Senior Technical Advisor for Peacebuilding with Catholic Relief Services and as country director in Burundi for Search for Common Ground. Mark co-authored a monitoring and evaluation manual for peacebuilding practitioners titled, Designing for Results: Integrating Monitoring and Evaluation in Conflict Transformation Programs, and co-edited a volume of case studies on faith-based peacebuilding titled Pursuing Just Peace. He holds a Masters of International Administration from the School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont.

Co-teaching: Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Lisa Schirch Lisa Schirch is the founding director of 3P Human Security, a partnership for peacebuilding policy. 3P connects policymakers with global civil society networks, facilitates civil-military dialogue and provides a conflict prevention and peacebuilding lens on current policy issues. Schirch is also a Research Professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, and Policy Advisor for the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

A former Fulbright Fellow in East and West Africa, Schirch has worked in over 20 countries in conflict prevention and peacebuilding, most recently in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Schirch has written four books and numerous articles on conflict prevention and strategic peacebuilding. Her current research interests include the design and structure of a comprehensive peace process in Afghanistan, conflict assessment and program design, civil-military relations, and the role of the media in peacebuilding.

Schirch holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University.

Teaching: Nonviolent Social Movements

Carl Stauffer is assistant professor of development and justice studies at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. He is also the Director of the Caux Scholars Program in Caux, Switzerland. For 15 years prior to coming to EMU, Dr. Stauffer worked as a project director and co-founder, lead facilitator, trainer, and curriculum designer for peacebuilding, justice and development initiatives in 20 countries across Africa, focusing on the application of transitional justice and developmental approaches to conflict prevention and post-violence reconstruction and reconciliation efforts at national and regional levels. He has worked with truth commissions, indigenous justice programs, and ex-combatant reintegration processes. Outside of Africa, Dr. Stauffer has worked in Cyprus, Israel/Palestine, the Philippines, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He also brings North American domestic experience as a pastor working at development projects in disadvantaged urban communities and as executive director of a Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program. Dr. Stauffer holds a Ph.D. from KwaZulu Natal University in South Africa and an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University.

Teaching: Designing Restorative Approaches to Complex Crime and Violation
Co-teaching: Restorative Justice: The Promise, The Challenge

Armand Volkas is a psychotherapist, drama therapist and theatre director. He is clinical director of the Living Arts Counseling Center in Oakland, California. He is also associate professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies and adjunct professor at John F. Kennedy University and Institute for Transpersonal Studies.

Volkas, the son of Auschwitz survivors and resistance fighters from World War II, created Healing the Wounds of History, a therapeutic approach in which theatre techniques are used to work with groups of participants from two cultures with a common legacy of violent conflict and historical trauma. He was moved by his personal struggle to address the issues that arose from his own legacy, including victimization and perpetration, identity, meaning and grief. Healing the Wounds of History has received international recognition for its work in bringing together groups in conflict: Descendants of Holocaust survivors and The Third Reich; Palestinians and Israelis; Japanese, Chinese and Koreans on their legacy of WWII; Armenians and Turks on the legacy of genocide; African-Americans and European-Americans on the legacy of slavery; Tamil and Singhalese in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War and between the factions involved in the Lebanese Civil War.

Volkas is also Artistic Director of The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble, which is in now in its 22nd year of existence. Playback Theatre transforms personal stories into improvised theatre pieces. At the heart of Armand’s work is a profound respect for the power of personal story to build bridges between people and cultures.

Volkas has an MFA in Theatre/Acting from the University of California, Los Angeles, an MA in Clinical Psychology/Drama Therapy from Antioch University. He is also a registered drama therapist and a board certified trainer with the National Association for Drama Therapy.

Teaching: Healing the Wounds of History: Peacebuilding through Transformative Theater

Cheryl teaches various courses at EMU’s Intensive English Program. She grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada and obtained a B.A. in English at Canadian Mennonite University. Through Mennonite Church Canada, she served by working with English and peace education at the Korea Anabaptist Center in South Korea. She also has experience in teaching and curriculum development in Canada, China, and East Timor. She has a certificate in TEFL, an MA in Education from EMU, and a graduate certificate in peacebuilding from EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Cheryl enjoys learning languages, reading, and playing hockey.

Teaching: Intensive English for Peacebuilding

Marshall is an attorney committed to bringing peacebuilding concepts to the law. He has an active collaborative law practice – a client-centered process in which the parties and their lawyers commit to resolving disputes outside the courtroom through face-to-face meetings where the lawyers serve as facilitators and process guides in addition to providing legal advice when required. He has designed and trained in learning events for mediators, lawyers, and other professionals using dialogue education, conflict transformation and restorative justice principles. Mr. Yoder is also an assistant affiliated professor at Eastern Mennonite University, where he teaches a pre-law capstone course and instructs in the MBA program in the areas of organizational governance and leadership.

Marshall has served on the Boards of numerous non-profits and is a member of the Collaborative Practice Training Institute, which trains mental health professionals, financial professionals, mediators, and attorneys in the use of a multi-disciplinary approach to resolving disputes. He also serves on the Civil Practice Committee of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, where he works with dispute resolution professionals from throughout the world in educating people about collaborative practice. Mr. Yoder uses dialogue education principles both in the classroom and in his practice and sees the model as a natural fit for peacebuilding trainings. He holds a JD from Campbell University School of Law and an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University.

Co-teaching: Leadership for Healthy Organizations

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