Peace Studies is offered a 35-hour mediation training over fall break, from October 20-24 (Monday through Friday), 9:30am to 5:30pm (with an hour break for lunch) in the Forum South Lounge.

Enrollment is limited and applications to attend the workshop are due to the Peace Studies Office (Macy 207) by September 10th. For more information contact Val Vetter, PSP Coordinator at [vetterv] or X4637. Download the Mediation Training Application Form.

This will be an interactive training. We will use exercises, activities, group discussions, handouts, demonstrations, role plays, theory and lectures to get at the heart of conflict, mediation and the skills we use.

The goal is for you to become a reflective practitioner: for you to understand what you can do as a mediator, and how and why you do it. In the training, you will gain an increased understanding of:

• Your own feelings and beliefs about conflict, so you are aware of them, and so they do not control what you do as a mediator
• Theory and understanding about the dynamics of conflict
• The premises of mediation
• The skills we use (your mediator tools), and
• How mediation works, through role plays and discussion.

We expect to include information on restorative justice, domestic violence, cultural assumptions underlying the model of mediation being presented, and race and privilege as topics related to conflict.

Although the topic of conflict and its resolution or transformation is a serious one, our goal is that we all have fun during the training, since people learn well when they are having fun.

Annie Tucker has been a mediator for over 13 years. She has an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Antioch University. She has mediated divorce and family cases, and in small claims, civil rights, victim offender, workplace and business situations. She is a REDRESS mediator for the U.S. Postal Service. She has co-developed and provided an ACR-approved 40-hour divorce and family mediation training. She has also provided small claims mediation trainings, basic mediation trainings, trainings on mediation and domestic violence, and conflict resolution. She helped produce the educational video: White Privilege 101.

Lolya Lipchitz is a mediator with experience in small claims, child welfare, and special education mediation and victim-offender dialogue. Lolya was a senior program associate with the Iowa Peace Institute where she presented mediation training to a range of groups in Iowa. She is vice-president of the Alternatives to Violence Project/USA, a national nonprofit corporation organized to offer training in nonviolent conflict resolution in prisons and communities in 32 states. She co-founded AVP/Iowa, which offers workshops in five of Iowa's prisons. Lolya has an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in biology from Barnard College.

Mediation skills can be applied in a wide variety of contexts including counseling, law, social work, as well as in a wide variety of work, family and community situations. This is an excellent opportunity to gain valuable conflict resolution skills and understanding, especially if you are considering graduate work or employment where such training would be an asset.

Mediation training is dependent on having every person present to participate in exercises and simulations since it involves skill-building and each day builds on the previous day's work. Students who sign up will be expected to attend the entire workshop, all five days, for seven hours each day. Students who complete the training will receive a certificate.

Fill out an application form and submit it to the Peace Studies Office in Macy 207 by September 10th. Download the Mediation Training Application Form.