N. Bennington Conflict Resolution Program and Professional Mediation, 1995-
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When I joined the faculty at Bennington College, I was focused on Dance, and developed a serious improvisation practice with my students and then later in collaboration with three scientists: Bruce Weber, Stuart Kauffman and Gerald Edelman. After I had been on the faculty for several years, a serious conflict emerged between some students and the administration. Elizabeth Coleman was President during this time. These particular students were threatening to cause much distress. One evening I was in my office, (which at the time was the little greenhouse on the side of Martha Hill Theater) while a rehearsal was going on for a concert, when a group of students approached me and asked me if I would go talk to the students who were organizing a protest, as they were afraid of what the students were going to do. It did not appear to be a peaceful protest to these students. I said that I would go talk to them, which I did. When I met with them, I asked them what they wanted to achieve, and if it was to work out some policies with the administration, perhaps a petition and a meeting with them might be more effective? The Board of Trustees were arriving the following day, and it turned out with pressure from the other students, they took my advice. As things worked out, the students and the administration met and solved the disputes.
After this incident, the President and several other people shared with me that they thought I should pursue this line of work. “What type of work is this?” I asked. They said it was the process of mediation. For so long, I had been the ‘mediator’ in my family and in other situations, so this felt familiar to me. I did not know there was a profession at the time (this was the late 1980s). I decided to explore and pursue mediation training. In the subsequent years, I got certified in Community Mediation with the Friends Conflict Resolution Service in Philadelphia as well as certificates in Environmental Dispute Resolution, Family Mediation, Divorce Mediation, Facilitation Practice, and Multi-Party Collaborative Problem Solving. I attended Vermont Law School for two excellent classes in dispute resolution, and ended up mediating a real conflict in one of those classes, being the only non-lawyer in the class. I then interned with two gifted and amazing mediators, the lawyer: Crevon Tarrance, and the judge: Arthur O’Dea. In particular, Judge O’Dea mentored me, and threw me into real live, complex, conflicts with many parties in business, community, education, and non-profits. I also was a mediator for the panels in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office as well as the Vermont Human Rights Commission. During all of this time, I continued my Improvisation performance and practice as well as teaching on the Dance Faculty.
After several years of professional practice, President Coleman encouraged me to teach the subject to Bennington students. At the same time, my colleague, Daniel Michaelson who was the Dean of Students when I became the Dean of Faculty in 1991, and who collaborated with me on Dance projects, (where he designed costumes, sets and graphics) became interested and also got certified in Mediation from the Friends Conflict Resolution Service. We decided to teach Conflict Resolution at Bennington College and began with a tutorial to design the first class and program with four Bennington College students. This is one of the unique opportunities in the education of Bennington College where students can initiate a tutorial or a new program. This has happened many times over my 40 years at the College. We came up with a very strong class, “The Art of Negotiation and Mediation”, which I still teach to this day. This initiative then entered the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at its very beginnings, and has developed into the important Restorative Justice program, and the Human Rights and Peacebuilding initiative. They have all become a significant part of the curriculum, convenings, guest faculty and projects in CAPA. Also, at the beginning, Danny Michaelson and I formed a group called, the Green Heron Associates, that conducted many mediations for schools, businesses, community centers, families, non-profits and special education programs.
In 2011, when I had received a US State Department grant through the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies to teach conflict resolution to Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, South Americans and Europeans, an important concept emerged for me. This is an important story to retell. When I arrived in the Negev, I had just left a residency at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York where I was exploring Complex Systems and Improvisation work. I had created a Salon there every week with scientists of all kinds who were interested in complexity.
I was becoming convinced that the organic structures in scientific complexity had application in many other fields, and that dance improvisation, because it is embodied, had particular significance. Speaking with Marco Iacobini, a renowned scientist on Mirror Neurons and Tim McGee, from the Biomimicry Institute who came to speak during my residency at my invitation, convinced me that this was true. This fact was already being confirmed with the three scientists I had been working with, Bruce Weber, Stuart Kauffman and Gerald Edelman.
Returning to the Arava Institute, the first day I entered the room to begin the Conflict Resolution workshop, when one of the young Palestinian men raised his hand and said to me, “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you really expect us to take seriously a workshop in conflict resolution?” At that moment, I realized how absurd it was that an American woman would be so ignorant and insensitive to the fact that they were dealing with an intractable conflict that no-one had been able to solve for centuries. I immediately responded, “Yes, I can see what you mean. Well, I am here for ten days, what shall we do?” After a bit of a shock to the rest of the class, he asked me what I was the most interested in and what was my passion?” I answered, “my Improvisation work”. The students asked, “Can you tell us about your work?” I then proceeded to explain my journey with improvisation, my collaboration and conversations with the scientists and my focus on complex systems analysis.
The students were on fire with this information and discovery. They immediately wanted me to offer a class in Improvisation for Dancers and Musicians, something that I have long taught at Bennington College. So every afternoon, for the days that I was there, we had the wildest improvisation class I have ever taught, except with Milford Graves and ten drummers. After several days of these classes, the students asked to go back to the Conflict Resolution class and discuss how Complexity could connect to Conflict Resolution and this type of ‘emergent structuring’. We decided to visually map the Jordan River and the communities along the river, both Palestinian and Israeli, using the structuring principles of complex systems analysis. They did a phenomenal job, all of the students, and began to work together, building on their relationships in the Improvisation class. It was so successful, that they encouraged me to think about a Complexity Conflict Resolution Model that I use to this day.
This experience left me with the unique insight that all along I had been searching for structures that went from ‘chaos to order’ and that here is where the improvisation work and the conflict resolution work merged and connected. Before this, I thought they were completely separate interests and work. In the dance improvisation work, ensembles are signaling to each other certain movement patterns and then structuring forms. In conflicts, parties are negotiating interests and needs to form emerging solutions. Both are working from more chaotic environments to more ordered ones, responding to present conditions. An amazing discovery, and I thank those students for that process of innovation and vision. That led to two classes that I teach to this day: “Solving the Impossible” and “Improvisation for a Catastrophe”.
After this incident, the President and several other people shared with me that they thought I should pursue this line of work. “What type of work is this?” I asked. They said it was the process of mediation. For so long, I had been the ‘mediator’ in my family and in other situations, so this felt familiar to me. I did not know there was a profession at the time (this was the late 1980s). I decided to explore and pursue mediation training. In the subsequent years, I got certified in Community Mediation with the Friends Conflict Resolution Service in Philadelphia as well as certificates in Environmental Dispute Resolution, Family Mediation, Divorce Mediation, Facilitation Practice, and Multi-Party Collaborative Problem Solving. I attended Vermont Law School for two excellent classes in dispute resolution, and ended up mediating a real conflict in one of those classes, being the only non-lawyer in the class. I then interned with two gifted and amazing mediators, the lawyer: Crevon Tarrance, and the judge: Arthur O’Dea. In particular, Judge O’Dea mentored me, and threw me into real live, complex, conflicts with many parties in business, community, education, and non-profits. I also was a mediator for the panels in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office as well as the Vermont Human Rights Commission. During all of this time, I continued my Improvisation performance and practice as well as teaching on the Dance Faculty.
After several years of professional practice, President Coleman encouraged me to teach the subject to Bennington students. At the same time, my colleague, Daniel Michaelson who was the Dean of Students when I became the Dean of Faculty in 1991, and who collaborated with me on Dance projects, (where he designed costumes, sets and graphics) became interested and also got certified in Mediation from the Friends Conflict Resolution Service. We decided to teach Conflict Resolution at Bennington College and began with a tutorial to design the first class and program with four Bennington College students. This is one of the unique opportunities in the education of Bennington College where students can initiate a tutorial or a new program. This has happened many times over my 40 years at the College. We came up with a very strong class, “The Art of Negotiation and Mediation”, which I still teach to this day. This initiative then entered the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at its very beginnings, and has developed into the important Restorative Justice program, and the Human Rights and Peacebuilding initiative. They have all become a significant part of the curriculum, convenings, guest faculty and projects in CAPA. Also, at the beginning, Danny Michaelson and I formed a group called, the Green Heron Associates, that conducted many mediations for schools, businesses, community centers, families, non-profits and special education programs.
In 2011, when I had received a US State Department grant through the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies to teach conflict resolution to Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, South Americans and Europeans, an important concept emerged for me. This is an important story to retell. When I arrived in the Negev, I had just left a residency at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York where I was exploring Complex Systems and Improvisation work. I had created a Salon there every week with scientists of all kinds who were interested in complexity.
I was becoming convinced that the organic structures in scientific complexity had application in many other fields, and that dance improvisation, because it is embodied, had particular significance. Speaking with Marco Iacobini, a renowned scientist on Mirror Neurons and Tim McGee, from the Biomimicry Institute who came to speak during my residency at my invitation, convinced me that this was true. This fact was already being confirmed with the three scientists I had been working with, Bruce Weber, Stuart Kauffman and Gerald Edelman.
Returning to the Arava Institute, the first day I entered the room to begin the Conflict Resolution workshop, when one of the young Palestinian men raised his hand and said to me, “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you really expect us to take seriously a workshop in conflict resolution?” At that moment, I realized how absurd it was that an American woman would be so ignorant and insensitive to the fact that they were dealing with an intractable conflict that no-one had been able to solve for centuries. I immediately responded, “Yes, I can see what you mean. Well, I am here for ten days, what shall we do?” After a bit of a shock to the rest of the class, he asked me what I was the most interested in and what was my passion?” I answered, “my Improvisation work”. The students asked, “Can you tell us about your work?” I then proceeded to explain my journey with improvisation, my collaboration and conversations with the scientists and my focus on complex systems analysis.
The students were on fire with this information and discovery. They immediately wanted me to offer a class in Improvisation for Dancers and Musicians, something that I have long taught at Bennington College. So every afternoon, for the days that I was there, we had the wildest improvisation class I have ever taught, except with Milford Graves and ten drummers. After several days of these classes, the students asked to go back to the Conflict Resolution class and discuss how Complexity could connect to Conflict Resolution and this type of ‘emergent structuring’. We decided to visually map the Jordan River and the communities along the river, both Palestinian and Israeli, using the structuring principles of complex systems analysis. They did a phenomenal job, all of the students, and began to work together, building on their relationships in the Improvisation class. It was so successful, that they encouraged me to think about a Complexity Conflict Resolution Model that I use to this day.
This experience left me with the unique insight that all along I had been searching for structures that went from ‘chaos to order’ and that here is where the improvisation work and the conflict resolution work merged and connected. Before this, I thought they were completely separate interests and work. In the dance improvisation work, ensembles are signaling to each other certain movement patterns and then structuring forms. In conflicts, parties are negotiating interests and needs to form emerging solutions. Both are working from more chaotic environments to more ordered ones, responding to present conditions. An amazing discovery, and I thank those students for that process of innovation and vision. That led to two classes that I teach to this day: “Solving the Impossible” and “Improvisation for a Catastrophe”.