Looking to Change the World: The 2014 S-CAR Graduating Class
On Thursday, May 15, 2014, the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) held its convocation ceremony at George Mason University's Center for the Arts in Fairfax. This year, S-CAR graduated 83 students from the undergraduate program, 72 from the Masters program, and 8 from the PhD program.
As Tom Brokaw, a renowned American television journalist, once said, “Your certification is in your degree. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.” A number of students who graduated in the spring of 2014 from S-CAR's undergraduate, certificate, masters, and PhD degrees, have already set out to achieve just that. Speaking about his experience in the Masters program, graduating sudent Chris Nace said, “My [Masters] experience was great because I had the freedom to fuse special education with conflict analysis and resolution, which is not very common. I was able to explore the concept of self-advocacy as an element of identity and self-reflection that is used to address structural conflicts in the education system.” Chris is currently working as the post-secondary transition specialist for DC Public Schools. He explained, “Essentially, that means I help prepare students for their transition to college, to work, and to live independently. I specifically focus on curriculum development, having been an author of DCPS's sixty-three transition courses, which teach conflict resolution, self-advocacy, workforce preparedness, and community-based instruction.”
Jenny White, a gradate of the undergraduate program, noted that one of her favourite things about being in the program was the relation that existed among the people studying at S-CAR. "Conflict analysis, to me, has become a study of relationships at all levels. It has taught me that to truly change the world, I have to change myself and do my best to serve as a model of peace practices." Jenny was recently awarded a grant to carry out a project in South Sudan that will look to engage in peacebuilding by involving women as community members and using dialogue to find common ground. "I am very excited about starting my project."
Seth B. Cohen, who graduated from the PhD program and whose dissertation was titled “Partnering for Peace: Practitioner Stories of Global North-South Peace Building Partnerships,” spoke about the need to discuss ones ideas with different professors to find the right guidance to get through the program successfully. "I got some really sound advice from different professors and ultimately was able to find a committee that supported my focus on the relationships that existsed between practice and theory in conflict analysis and resolution. Dr. Sara Cobb, who was my Committee chair, was instrumental in challenging me to think critically about my work and guiding me through the dissertation writing process in a timely fashion." Seth currently works for the Conflict Resolution and Public Participation Center of Expertise at the Institute for Water Resources, which is the part of the Corps of Engineers dedicated to water resource management. "The best parts of my job are when I am facilitating meetings with stakeholders on challenges like flood risk management, collaborative problem-solving and unique challenges like working with Native American tribes." "In the future I hope to get back to more grassroots conflict transformation and peacebuilding work."
Congratulations to the graduating class of Spring 2014, and all the best to all those in the conflict analysis and resolution field, working on changing the world.