S-CAR

PhD students and faculty work together to take courses from lecture hall to virtual classroom

Audrey Williams — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 15:54:46 +0000

PhD students and faculty work together to take courses from lecture hall to virtual classroom Audrey Williams Wed, 03/25/2020 - 11:54

In This Story

Juliette Rouge (Shedd)

Daniel Rothbart

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi

Thomas Flores

Topics

S-CAR

virtual instruction

virtual alternative instruction

coronavirus

Covid-19

Online Learning

coronavirus; covid-19

coronavirus; COVID-19; News; Editorial

Undergraduate takes her passion for peacebuilding to new heights at Mason

Mariam Aburdeineh — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Undergraduate takes her passion for peacebuilding to new heights at Mason Mariam Aburdeineh Wed, 02/19/2020 - 00:00

Topics

S-CAR

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

In Love and In Service: Meet the Married Alumni Who Keep Giving Back

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 05:00:00 +0000

In Love and In Service: Meet the Married Alumni Who Keep Giving Back Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 02/13/2020 - 00:00

Topics

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

S-CAR

Mason Alumni

Alumni

Will a second chance at a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire be successful? Mason expert weighs in.

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:25:41 +0000

Will a second chance at a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire be successful? Mason expert weighs in. Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 12/19/2019 - 05:25

In This Story

Karina Korostelina

Topics

S-CAR

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

Karina Korostelina

Tip Sheet

California’s ban on school suspensions is a step in the right direction, Mason experts say

Mariam Aburdeineh — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 05:00:00 +0000

California’s ban on school suspensions is a step in the right direction, Mason experts say Mariam Aburdeineh Mon, 10/07/2019 - 01:00

Topics

S-CAR

CHSS

criminology law and society

Patricia Maulden

Beidi Dong

Tip Sheet

Trump’s food stamp proposal puts most vulnerable Americans at risk, Mason experts say

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 11:51:50 +0000

Trump’s food stamp proposal puts most vulnerable Americans at risk, Mason experts say Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 10/03/2019 - 07:51

In This Story

Karina Korostelina

Topics

S-CAR

Schar School of Policy and Government

Peacebuilding is a civil duty for alumna who lived through civil war

Mariam Aburdeineh — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 12:28:58 +0000

Peacebuilding is a civil duty for alumna who lived through civil war Mariam Aburdeineh Wed, 09/25/2019 - 08:28

Dilafruz Khonikboyeva and her family won the Green Card Lottery while living through Tajikistan’s civil war, but they didn’t know about it until the years-long blockade was lifted in 1995. They crossed multiple battle lines to reach the U.S. consulate in Moscow. Luckily, even though their green cards had expired by the time they arrived, the U.S. government honored them, Khonikboyeva said.

“Coming as a child from conflict, I was trying to understand how things like that happen,” said Khonikboyeva, who said she escaped the war at age 7 and remembers her mother selling her jewelry so her family could have carrots to survive the food blockade.

2019 Presidential Leadership Scholar Dilafruz Khonikboyeva. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services

Such questions motivated Khonikboyeva to formally study conflict. She said she chose to study for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at ��AV’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR) due to its international reputation as a leader in the field, the university’s diverse student body and Mason’s proximity to Washington, D.C.

Professors provided tangible knowledge that she has continuously applied in her professional career, Khonikboyeva said.

“Right out of school, I spent eight years working at USAID, doing the same kind of work people did for me as a kid,” she said.

That includes coordinating with donors, governments and the United Nations to secure food and humanitarian aid in countries at war, said Khonikboyeva, who is now a global lead at the Aga Khan Foundation, where she develops communications and policy strategy for 30 countries in fragile and conflict zones.

What Khonikboyeva learned at S-CAR allows her to evaluate active indicators in the conflict-affected countries in which she works, she said. She knows what to look for to estimate if a conflict will continue, for how long, if peace will be achieved, and how likely a country is to remain at peace.

Classes on the dynamics of diaspora and civil wars taught by Mason professors Thomas Flores and Terrance Lyons “fundamentally changed how I thought about my past, but also my future,” Khonikboyeva said.

Hoping to make an even greater impact in the future, Khonikboyeva continued her education in 2019 in the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, which, according to its mission statement, brings together a diverse network of leaders to collaborate and make a difference in the world.

During the program, Khonikboyeva learned lessons in leadership by studying the presidential experiences of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson. She heard about civil duty and servant leadership, attended classroom sessions on everything from communication to economic theory, and worked on a personal leadership project aimed at empowering Americans to break down divides and have difficult conversations.

“Conflict is the perceived divergence of interest,” Khonikboyeva said. “[The campaign and its accompanying digital resources] will help people understand that conflict can be a positive thing and can bring us to understanding.”

Khonikboyeva, who believes she is the first Mason alum to be accepted into the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, said her campaign is in the development stages, but she hopes to involve Mason by collaborating with professors.

“[S-CAR’s professors’] investment in their students continues forever,” Khonikboyeva said. “They’ve been such a part of my life, and I think their work is so important.”

“She’s smart, hard-working and tenacious,” Lyons said. “I particularly admire her ability to serve as a bridge between communities, even when they are as far flung as the mountains of Tajikistan and the world of development professionals in Washington. Her commitment to conflict analysis and resolution is heartfelt, but she also has an entrepreneur’s eye toward finding creative opportunities.”

Students discover African-led development in Mason’s first trip to Eritrea

Melanie Balog — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 16:19:44 +0000

Students discover African-led development in Mason’s first trip to Eritrea Melanie Balog Mon, 08/26/2019 - 12:19

There are multiple sides to every story. But when it comes to Eritrea, a country that’s been isolated due to 20 years of war and nine years of sanctions, much of their story hasn’t been told, said Carol Pineau, a former CNN journalist who reported live on the Eritrean-Ethiopian war and is a visiting scholar at ��AV.

This summer, faculty from Mason’s Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution took 11 PhD, master’s and undergraduate students to Eritrea for two weeks to uncover the country’s narrative of development.

“It’s exceptional for the number one conflict resolution [school] in the country to be going into Eritrea—a place like that is post-conflict in real time,” said Pineau, who added that she believes the trip was the first open enrollment study-abroad program to Eritrea from any U.S. university.

S-CAR Ph.D. student Felegebirhan Mihret making new friends with a group of local men in Asmara. Photo by Carol Pineau.

Very few articles have been written on Eritrean development, so the best way to understand it is to go there, said Pineau, who co-led the trip with Mason professor Solon Simmons.

During the trip organized by Pineau and the center’s director Sara Cobb, Mason students met with Eritrean ministry heads, spanning health, social welfare, education, agriculture and national development, and information representatives from the United Nations and several ambassadors. Venturing out of the capital, they saw development projects firsthand, including a referral hospital for pediatric and maternal care, reforestation and terracing projects for soil and water conservation, dams to improve drinking water, and more. They also met with Eritrea’s best-known writers (including the author of their national anthem), and toured the battlefields with the commander who led the decisive battle that ended the fighting.

“Social justice is one of their highest values [the ministry heads] spoke about,” said Friderike Butler, a graduate student in Mason’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management Program. “Any approach for development has to be good for the community, it has to afford equality for all the stakeholders involved, it has to be good for the environment and it has to be sustainable.”

“What surprised me is that we actually have an African country that is addressing the idea of development that is self-driven, self-propelled,” said conflict analysis and resolution PhD student Gbenga Dasylva.

Eritrea has a negative reputation in the world press, Dasylva said, and it is often seen as stubborn or threatening for not receiving outside aid. The country has no World Bank, no NGOs and no international players at the table developing their programs. Even so, they’re one of the few countries in Africa that is meeting the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations.

How are they excelling without aid?

They’re focused on African-led solutions to African challenges, said Pineau, who added that their story challenges the narrative that development happens because the global north finds the solution.

“The [development] programs they’re putting in place are really amazing,” said Butler, who cited one example as the Minimum Integrated Household Agricultural Package, a program that allows Eritrean families to learn skills in organic farming, feed their family, generate an income and help their neighbors do the same.

Eritrea’s innovative work could benefit the rest of the developing world by learning from their unique and locally driven solutions, Pineau said. The experience has also had an impact on students.

Dasylva said he was so inspired by Eritrea that he changed his dissertation to look at development happening there, and how it can be a model for the rest of Africa.

“There is a need for us scholars of international relations to address issues contextually and to start rethinking how we define concepts like development, peace building and governance,” Dasylva said.

Development isn’t the creation of buildings, Dasylva said. “Development is: Do the people have quality of life? Are they able to sustain themselves? Eritrea has been able to address this.”

During the trip, students recorded interviews and gathered documentation of Eritrea’s people and history.

Students at the Ministry of Investment and Promotion in Eritrea. Photo by Gbenga DeSilva.

S-CAR

Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution

Students

Dialogue & Difference shows religion and politics aren’t off the table

Melanie Balog — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 06:23:44 +0000

Dialogue & Difference shows religion and politics aren’t off the table Melanie Balog Tue, 01/22/2019 - 01:23

There’s a familiar rule at most family gatherings: Don’t talk about religion or politics.

But for the past 10 years, the Dialogue & Difference class and project at ��AV have been turning that rule on its head.

“It’s not easy to convince people that on those topics it’s actually possible to have a conversation,” said Mara Schoeny, associate professor at Mason’s top-rated School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (S-CAR). The course equips students with the skills to have challenging yet considerate conversations and learn from one another, she said.

The Dialogue and Difference Project has hosted 74 events since 2008, allowing 42 interns to facilitate dialogues. Photo by Michael P. Smith.

More than 500 students have taken this course that brings together international and American students to discuss controversial issues. The collaboration makes the class powerful, said adjunct professor Leila Peterson, who runs the course with Michael Smith, an English language instructor from INTO Mason.

“Multilingual students are a rich resource for promoting cultural understanding, but domestic students don't often have opportunities to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds on a deep level,” Smith said. “[This] class creates such opportunities.”

This fall students discussed gun control, immigration, gender equality, the Muslim world in the West and freedom of speech. Each semester the topics change, but the structure remains the same.

The first part of the semester is about relationship building and learning how to create a safe space, said Peterson. Next, students facilitate difficult conversations with their peers using the skills they’ve learned. The final part of the semester is learning how to apply what they’ve learned in their everyday lives.

Key parts of that include learning how to listen, how to speak up about individual views and ultimately arriving at conversations with a desire to learn instead of debate or win an argument.

“The one thing I really like about this class is that there’s no problem that’s too complex,” said S-CAR senior Kyle Ferris. “If you set up the right conditions and approach it the right way, then you can really have a conversation about things that most people would think are unresolvable.”

Students also learn more about themselves in the process.

“I thought I was a really open-minded person, but in hindsight, I thought so one-sidedly and not dynamically [about the cultures and topics we discussed],” said Nora Malatinszky, a junior at S-CAR. She said learning how to communicate effectively and in a streamlined way is one of her main takeaways from the course.

International students benefit in similar ways, with the added bonus of gaining a stronger mastery of American culture and the English language by taking a course with native English speakers.

For those who want to be part of the conversations but can’t attend the class, a series of dialogues is open to the wider campus community: the Dialogue & Difference Project, which promotes cultural, political, and social understanding much the same as the course does. The project, led by associate professor Patricia Maulden, has organized 74 events since 2008 and has given 42 interns, like 2018 graduate Amadu Koroma, opportunities to facilitate dialogues.

Knowing people can have these difficult conversations in a productive way is a great thing, said Ferris. “It gives you optimism for how to approach conflicts in the future.”

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution students join INTO Mason students from around the world to discuss race, religion and the U.S. election. File photo by Evan Cantwell.