When Carl Stauffer, PhD, became an assistant professor at CJP in 2010, it was his third sojourn at this university. Previously at EMU, he had earned a bachelor’s degree in social work (1985) and a master’s degree in conflict transformation (2002). At SPI 2014, Stauffer co-taught two courses: “The Impact of Social Issues on Restorative Justice,” with another CJP graduate, doctoral candidate Jacqueline Roebuck Sakho, and “Restorative Justice – The Promise, the Challenge,” with SPI alumna Johonna McCanns, PhD.
Alumni relish returning to SPI Instead of returning for EMU’s “homecoming” celebration – always held over one weekend each October – degree-holding alumni of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) often show up for its annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI). And those SPI alumni who aren’t aiming to earn a degree? Some of them just keep coming back year after year – almost as an educational vacation – or they send their colleagues and friends to SPI. Of the 2,800 SPI participants over the last 19 years, more than one in five have been repeat participants, taking courses during a second year or even multiple years of SPI. In that number must be counted almost all of CJP’s 398 master’s degree alumni, plus 91 graduate certificate holders. Some of their MA classmates are now SPI instructors, plus many of their professors have taught at SPI year after year.
Detouring six hours to reconnect Among the first drop-bys to SPI 2014 were Florina Benoit and 8
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peacebuilder spring/summer 2014
Ashok Gladston of India, both 2004 MA grads from CJP and now PhD-holders. They made a six-hour round-trip detour from a family-related stop in Baltimore, Maryland, to say “hello” to folks at SPI. Gladston was last at EMU in June 2011 when he gave a heartwrenching talk at EMU centering on women from a minority group in southern India who were being violently victimized by mobs from the surrounding majority group. The two, both former Fulbright Scholars married to each other, happened to arrive on May 7 when Doreen Ruto of Kenya, a 2006 MA graduate, was the featured SPI “Frontier Luncheon” speaker, along with her colleague (and son) Richy Bikko, a 2011 BA graduate who majored in justice, peace and conflict studies. Over that day, Gladston and Benoit interacted with a dozen professors, staffers and alumni whom they recalled from their studies at CJP 10 years ago. When the day turned to evening and their borrowed car was found to have a non-working headlight, they lingered for activities very familiar to them – a community “potluck” meal, followed by a cultural program led by SPI participants, and informal dancing. (They huddled with this writer for much of that time answering questions about their work in India – but more on that later.) They then accepted the impromptu invitation of Margaret Foth, a retiree who has been a long-time liaison with CJP alumni, PHOTO by Michael Sheeler