Public Presentation
Internationally renowned mediator and violence prevention expert Dr. Ben Hoffman will be speaking at Antioch University McGregor on September 19th at 7:00 in the National City Bank Auditorium on Dayton Street in Yellow Springs, OH. As well as sharing his experiences while working at the Carter Center, Dr. Hoffman will be discussing his most recent book, The Peace Guerilla Handbook, a best practices approach for peacebuilding.
Dr. Ben Hoffman directed violence prevention, mediation, and post-conflict reconciliation efforts through the Center’s Conflict Resolution Program, its International Council for Conflict Resolution, and in conjunction with the Democracy, Global Development, and Americas Programs. Since 2000, cases included Ecuador, East Timor, Guyana, Venezuela, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, Liberia, and Aceh, Indonesia. As Chair of the Center’s Sudan Task Force, working closely with President Carter, Dr. Hoffman led an intensive set of initiatives directed at US peace policy, peace process design, and capacity-building for the GOS and SPLM. Responsible for assisting Sudan and Uganda in implementing the 1999 Nairobi Agreement, Dr. Hoffman engaged the GOU and Joseph Kony/LRA with the goal of peace talks in Uganda; mediated numerous bilateral meetings of political, humanitarian, and security representatives; and supervised diplomatic and field staff responsible for repatriating abducted child soldiers.
Do you approach conflict and other challenges in your life as problems to be avoided or solved? Or, are you open to the possibility that conflict and other challenges may be an opportunity for personal transformation?
In today’s complex conflict environments, where negotiating differences often devolves to violent struggle, interveners must have heightened capacities for integration, collaboration, and creativity. In working with difficult and intractable conflicts, we believe that interveners, both formal and informal, must develop advanced capacities of perspective-taking in order to navigate the multifaceted challenges these real-life situations present.
Antioch McGregor’s conflict programs are designed to engage the whole person through a process of learning strategies that support the growth of consciousness, contemplative practices, authentic conversation skills, social competencies, and emotional intelligence. Our program design draws on the work of many pioneers in a wide array of disciplines including John Burton, Johan Galtung, Morton Deutsch, Bill Ury, Vamik Volkan, Jack Mezirow, Robert Kegan, Ken Wilber, and Daniel Goleman.
There are three unique hallmarks to our program design:
- An integral approach to understanding conflict
- Transformational reflective practice
- A Developmental curriculum
To enroll in McGregor’s conflict program is to accept our invitation to join us on a transformational journey, where we will accompany and support you in traveling to the edges of your known world, and where the deep understanding that dwells within you begins to shift and makes room for a new vision, a broader perspective, a new experience of yourself in relation to your world. This transformation happens in our Yellow Spring classrooms, our online virtual classrooms, our university seminars, and in your own thinking, writing, and talking about becoming a cutting edge peace worker and conflict intervener.
Come be with us and let our faculty instruct, guide, and work with you to become more of who you truly are. Come be with us and win a victory for humanity.
