Fall / Winter 2006
SPI Prof Heads MCC
Robb Davis
Robb Davis – who has taught at three sessions of the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) – was named last year the executive director of the main relief organization supported by members of Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).
In his SPI role, Davis guided students toward new ways to lead and to teach, based on evidence that everyone, but adults in particular, learn through discovering information for themselves and shaping it to fit their own experiences and settings.
Davis’s class was called “Designing Learner-Centered Training for Conflict Transformation.”
In the May/June ’06 issue of MCC’s magazine, A Common Place, Davis wrote:
The nations of the world continue to invest billions of dollars seeking security, often employing violent means. By comparison, our efforts [as peacebuilders] may seem limited. However, we know from Mathew 13:33 that Christ’s peaceful kingdom is like yeast making its way inexorably through an entire lump of dough.
SPI began in 1994, in part, to serve the needs of MCC and its sister organizations by offering short-term, practical training to peace and justice workers. Most years, MCC has sent and fully funded the training of about 20 people from key conflict zones.
In the last three years, this has included four to six Iraqis annually (almost all being Muslim). This year, MCC selected 27 people for training at SPI, though only 22 were able to obtain the necessary visas to come.
In addition to teaching at SPI each summer (done as part of his summer vacation), Davis has worked for Freedom from Hunger, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision. He holds a masters in public health and a PhD in population dynamics from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.