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Foreword by Dr. Christopher Mitchell:
One aspect of the major expansion of Institute resources and, hence, capabilities that took place in 1987 was the endowment of the Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Chair of Conflict Resolution by Edwin and Helen Lynch, long-time supporters of the conflict research program at George Mason University; and the appointment of Dr. James H. Laue as the first Lynch Professor. At the time of Jim Laue's appointment, it was also decided to mark the establishment of this, the very first chair in the country in Conflict Resolution, and to honor Edwin and Helen by holding a public, annual Lynch Lecture, which would provide an opportunity for a major figure in the field to report on progress in research and practice to a wider audience than was generally reached by academic talks and lectures held at universities.
Appropriately, President George W. Johnson wished to introduce the first speaker, and Jim Laue requested that he be allowed to deliver this very first Lynch Lecture, which he duly did on November 17, 1987, to a large, varied, and interested audience. Equally appropriately, Jim chose to deliver a sweeping overview of the field, its recent progress, its basic assumptions, and (most importantly) its practical applications in a variety of arenas in which damaging conflict occurs, from families to international regions, such as the Middle East.
The lecture, which the Institute has now produced in its Occasional Papers series, thus takes the form of an introduction to the field of conflict analysis and resolution, informed by practical lessons and examples from a long experience of conflict resolving in the field. Nobody was better qualified to deliver such a survey than Jim Laue. His experience of working with the Community Relations Service in the 1960s, his background as an academic sociologist, his wide and varied experience as a consultant, an intermediary, a campaigner for conflict "resolutionary" institutions (most notably the United States Peace Academy) –all this gave him a direct and personal knowledge of how the academic and the practical aspects of our field had developed over the previous twenty years, to the point at which the Institute (then the Center) for Conflict Analysis and Resolution stood ready to begin the first doctoral program in the field, and to expand the activities of its faculty and students as theorist-practitioners.
This first Lynch Lecture thus provides a fitting starting point for the series that followed and for the whole series of activities that Jim proceeded to initiate at his new institution, to the amazement and enjoyment of his students, colleagues, and friends.
Christopher R. Mitchell, Director The Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution