North Central
College (Naperville, IL)
The
Dispute Resolution Center
Summary
North Central College’s Dispute Resolution Center, an innovative
curricular based interdisciplinary program aligned with the college’s
mission to emphasize leadership, ethics, and values, offers students a
set of opportunities to learn, teach, and practice conflict resolution
within the College and in the communities beyond the College in ways that
create leadership capacity grounded in the tasks of peacemaking.
The Practice
The Dispute Resolution Center, begun in 1992, is a campus wide interdisciplinary
program with three major components. The Center operates outside academc
departmental boundaries and reports to the academic dean.
Students learning the art of conflict resolution: Conflict resolution
courses, all of which focus on mediative approaches to negotiating and
to solving intractable local, domestic, and international problems, draw
on multiple academic disciplines, as well as harmonize theory and practice.
These courses serve students in a variety of academic disciplines, particularly
academic minors in community and professional conflict resolution. Graduate
students may obtain a certificate in dispute resolution by taking these
courses.
Students teaching the art of conflict resolution: The learning
experience extends beyond the classroom. Completion of the prerequisite
conflict resolution courses qualifies a student as a Dispute Resolution
Center associate. Associates apply what they have learned by teaching
conflict resolution in several settings. Local elementary, middle and
secondary schools depend on the Dispute Resolution Center to train and
support peer mediators; churches and civic organizations solicit associates
to teach seminars in effective conflict resolution; and, across the North
Central campus, associates present sessions on dealing successfully with
conflict.
Students practicing the art of conflict resolution: Beyond coursework
and teaching to develop and demonstrate mastery of the field, associates
also mediate both on and off campus. The Center’s peer mediation
service provides students and student organizations with teams of peer
mediators to assist in resolving disputes ranging from minor roommate
disagreements to racial, gender, and other conflict. Associates also team
with local lawyers in a unique program to mediate lawsuits involving members
of the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce. These cases, involving damages
up to $25,000, offer students a ‘real-life’ look at business
disputes. More importantly, these cases offer students an opportunity
do something about local disputes, involving real parties and real money.
Effectiveness
Students learning the art of conflict resolution: Written examinations
and papers do not fully afford students an opportunity to display expertise
in the mediation process, so students are evaluated through in-class and
videotaped simulation work requiring them to integrate the practice and
theory of conflict resolution about which they have learned.
Students teaching the art of conflict resolution: Participant
evaluation forms are completed in all settings in which associates teach
conflict resolution and introduce students to the process of critical
feedback and refinement of skills based on that feedback. The results
show that participants benefit significantly from the conflict resolution
materials they are provided. Associates also self-evaluate to assure a
reflective response to the experience they have had.
Students practicing the art of conflict resolution: Party evaluation
forms are completed after all cases mediated. Students receive detailed
feedback on mediation skills as a result. In addition, associates self-evaluate
and discuss the experience with both the Center director and the lawyer
co-mediator to maximize the learning each mediation experience provides.
Peer mediation teams settle 92% of all cases that reach mediation and
mediation teams handling off-campus lawsuits have a 94% success rate.
At an institutional level, beyond the work on and off campus with dispute
resolution, the Center’s work has contributed to three developments:
Each year North Central College chooses an area outside the United States
for an academic focus. The Dispute Resolution Center creates a course
on conflict resolution related to a campus wide international focus chosen
each year (e.g. S.E. Asia this year). This course is recognized as energizing
the campus-wide international focus. A new urban studies minor has adopted
some of the curricular patterns of the Dispute Center model. Faculty involvment
in these practices are recognized in promotion and tenure decisions.
Resources
Click
here for an overview of the North Central College Leadership, Ethics
& Values Program, including academic minor programs in conflict resolution.
Click
here for a summary of the North Central College graduate certificate
in dispute resolution.
Click
here for a description of the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce
Member Mediation Program.
Contact Information
Thomas D. Cavenagh, JD
Associate Professor of Law & Conflict Resolution
Director, Dispute Resolution Center
630-637-5157
630-637-5260 (fax)
tdcavenagh@noctrl.edu
|
Effective
Practices Exchange
