news shorts Straus Institute and Palmer Center Host
Sustainability Symposium
The Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and the Geoffrey H. Palmer Center for Entrepreneurship and the Law hosted “Taking it Upstream: Collaboration, Consensus Building, and Sustainable Development: A Green Leadership (Un)Conference” on September 25 at Pepperdine’s Drescher Graduate Campus in Malibu, California. The symposium was a forum for green-minded community leaders, agencies, planners, architects, developers, engineers, attorneys, and citizens to explore best practices for using collaboration, consensus building, and other enhanced civic engagement techniques to create more sustainable communities and manage potential land use and environmental disputes. The featured interactive “Sustainability Roundtables” focused on communities, transportation, zoning and development controls, construction and design, infrastructure, and resources. The (un)conference was the brainchild of environmental attorney and mediator Steve Zikman (LLM ‘09), who was a Straus Fellow last year. “The morning framing sessions and afternoon roundtables were highly collaborative,” he says. “The conversations were designed to capture the wisdom of the room.” Listen to a podcast with Steve Zikman and panelist Pete Peterson at www.pepperdine.edu/pepperdinepeople/podcasts.
“The council is an important step forward for the Straus Institute and Pepperdine University,” says Professor Tom Stipanowich, the institute’s academic director. “In addition to finding new uses for time and talents of our long-time friends, it has brought into our circle dozens of wise, prominent, and talented new friends from around the globe who care about and are in a position to help us promote Pepperdine's missions of peacemaking and service.”
Straus Institute Welcomes
Council of Distinguished Advisors
Pepperdine’s acclaimed Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, known for its top ranking as the Number One dispute resolution program in the nation, hosted the second meeting of its council of distinguished advisors on September 24. The council, comprising leading lawyers, corporate counsel, judges, educators, professional neutrals, institutional leaders, and creative thinkers, has helped guide the Straus Institute in the continuing evolution of its programs since the council’s inception in 2007.
Members of the council represent 10 states and three countries, including Hong Kong and Beijing, China, and the United Kingdom. The council includes many prominent members who stand at the top of their fields such as Kathy Bryan, president of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution; Madame Wang Hongsong, secretary general for the Beijing Arbitration Commission; William Slate, president of the American Arbitration Association; Siri Marshall, senior vice president of General Mills; Dorothy Nelson, senior judge for the United States Court of Appeals; and Mary Walker, general counsel for the United States Air Force. Visit the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at straus.pepperdine.edu.
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