Scholar in Residence Program

A major part of the center’s mission is to increase student exposure to leading academics and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution. While the center’s Lecture Series provides brief and intense exposure it is the Scholar in Residence program that provides the most intimate exchange between faculty and practitioners from outside the university. Scholars in residence have the opportunity to lecture,

The center has had three Scholars in Residence. One is an academic and two practitioners.

Scholar in Residence 2007-2008

Arun Gandhi, is the Conflict Analysis Dispute Resolution scholar in residence at Salisbury University during the fall 2007 and the spring of 2008.

Gandhi's residency is being sponsored by the Center for Conflict Resolution, that was made possible by the prestigious Elkins Professorship that was awarded to Dr. Brian Polkinghorn, executive director of the Center and distinguished professor in the Conflict Analysis Dispute Resolution program.

During his time as a scholar in residence he completed a series of seminars in on the principals of non-violence and leadership as taught by Gandhi's grandfather. The seminar was conducted for over 75 students, staff and community members. This series of seminars was capped off with a lecture that was open to the general public on the subject of "Nonviolence in the Age of Terrorism."

Arun Gandhi BIO:

Born in 1934 in Durban, South Africa, Arun is the fifth grandson of India’s legendary leader, Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi.

Growing up under the discriminatory apartheid laws of South Africa, he was beaten by “white” South Africans for being too black and “black” South Africans for being too white; so, Arun sought eye-for-an-eye justice. However, he learned from his parents and grandparents that justice does not mean revenge, it means transforming the opponent through love and suffering.

Grandfather taught Arun to understand nonviolence through understanding violence. “If we know how much passive violence we perpetrate against one another we will understand why there is so much physical violence plaguing societies and the world,” Gandhi said. Through daily lessons, Arun says, he learned about violence and about anger.

Arun shares these lessons all around the world. For the past five years, he has participated in the Renaissance Weekend deliberations with President Clinton and other well-respected Rhodes Scholars. This year, some of his engagements included speaking at the Chicago Children’s Museum and the Women’s Justice Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He also delivered talks at the Young President’s Organization in Mexico, the Trade Union Leaders’ Meeting in Milan, Italy, as well as the Peace and Justice Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Sometimes, his journeys take him even further. Arun has spoken in Croatia, France, Ireland, Holland, Lithuania, Nicaragua, China, and Japan. Also, he is a very popular speaker on college campuses. In the past year, he spoke at the University of Rochester, North Dakota State University, Concordia College, Baker University, Morehouse College, Marquette University, and the University of San Diego.

Arun is very involved in social programs and writing as well. Shortly after Arun married his wife Sunanda, they were informed the South African government would not allow her to accompany him there. Sunanda and Arun decided to live in India, and Arun worked for 30 years as a journalist for The Times of India. Together, Arun and Sunanda started projects for the social and economic upliftment of the oppressed using constructive programs, the backbone of Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. The programs changed the lives of more than half a million people in over 300 villages and they still continue to grow. Arun is the author of several books. The first, A Patch of White (1949), is about life in prejudiced South Africa; then, he wrote two books on poverty and politics in India; followed by a compilation of M.K. Gandhi's Wit & Wisdom. He also edited a book of essays on World Without Violence: Can Gandhi’s Vision Become Reality? And, more recently, wrote The Forgotten Woman: The Untold Story of Kastur, the Wife of Mahatma Gandhi, jointly with Sunanda.

Scholar in Residence 2003-2005

John A. Wagner, MS is a professional mediator and conflict managing consultant with over thirty years of experience. His career began in 1968, in Labor Relations and Human Resources, before joining the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, (FMCS) in 1973. He served in a number of administrative and managerial positions with the FMCS while continuing to mediate private, public and federal sector collective bargaining disputes, equal employment opportunity complaints, as well as facilitating regulatory negotiations. He has trained and lectured to a wide variety of audiences, both domestic and international, including the University of Moscow, and instructed for George Mason University at the Organization of American States.

Mr. Wagner offers a wide variety of conflict managing services which includes consultation, systems design, training, mediation/facilitation, arbitration and evaluation. He has evaluated, assessed and designed conflict managing systems for both public and private institutions, most notably: the Environmental Protection Agency. Bureau of National Affairs, the Federal Elections Commission, the Peace Corps. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and National Aeronautical and Space Administration. He assisted in the design, training, intake and delivery of alternative dispute resolution services for both internal and external complaints procedures at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mr. Wagner has lectured extensively on the design and implementation of conflict management processes. Since 1994, he has been a featured presenter at the Annual Federal Dispute Resolution Conference.

His international work has been devoted to consultation, facilitation, training and dispute systems design in Europe, Canada, Indonesia, the Caribbean and Latin America. He has served on the Board of the Institute for Conflict Analysis & Resolution at George Mason University since 1995, and chaired the Arlington Catholic Diocese Fact Finding Panel. His publications include “Court Busters”, Government Executive, (October, 1995); and Mediation Training Manual, 2^nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: FMCS, 1997). Mr. Wagner received his B.S. in Political Science from, St. Peter’s College and a M.S. in Conflict Management from George Mason University.

Scholar in Residence 2001-2003

Thomas E. Boudreau, Ph.D. has, over the last twenty years, lived and taught in Europe and the United States.

His area of specialization is in International Relations and Conflict Resolution having earned his masters and doctoral through the Maxwell School of Citizenship, Syracuse University. He also holds a BS in Philosophy from Boston University (Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa).

For four years he was an Instructor of Peace Studies in the World Issues Program, School for International Training where he taught numerous course in Peace Studies.

For two years he was the Project Director for the Crisis Management Project at the Carnegie Council in Religion and International Affairs in New York where he was responsible for all facets of the project including budget, research and publications. From this he conducted his dissertation research in the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General. His subsequently published a highly regarded book on the topic entitled “Sheathing the Sword: The U.N. Secretary-General and the Prevention of International Conflict.”

For the next two years Tom was a Visiting Professor at the Irish Peace Institute, University of Limerick, Ireland where organized the management and training of non-profit peace groups in Northern Ireland, organized and planned the first joint peace studies Masters degree program between the University of Limerick and the University of Ulster. He also helped to organize the “peace and Global Communications Conference” with the Shannon Development Group that included Ted Turner (CNN), Daniel Deudney (Princeton University) and Bob Geldoff (Live Aid).

Upon his return the United States he was a Professor of Peace Studies at St. John's University, St. Joseph, Minnesota where he was instrumental in the development of their undergraduate Peace Studies program.

This was followed by a five year stint as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Resource and Security, Cambridge MA, where he conducted research on the Non-Proliferation treaty, published the Institute’s Delegate Handbook and where with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s office in strategic planning. He also worked with the Bosnian Government’s Mission to the United Nations (1992-1995).

For two years he was a visiting Professor in the Political Science Department, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University and one year as a Visiting Professor in the Government Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Then for five years he was a Professor of Conflict Resolution in the Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Nova Southeastern University where he worked with Brian Polkinghorn in developing doctoral curriculum and specific programs.

Currently, he is Visiting Assistant Professor in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program, School for International Service, at American University.

Tom is the author of numerous books and articles that have had a major impact on the field including:

Universitas: The Social Restructuring of American Undergraduate Education
ISBN: 0275955842

Sheathing the Sword: The U.N. Secretary-General and the Prevention of International Conflict, Vol. 273 . (Westport: Greenwood) ISBN: 0313261091.

Other notable publications include:

“Protecting the Innocent.” Carnegie Council on Religion and International Affairs. New York, N.Y. (1981).

"Buying Time in a Crisis." Worldview, November 1983.

"Satellite Diplomacy and the Secretary-General." Carnegie Council on Religion and International Affairs. New York, N.Y. (1984).

"Building Human Cooperation Through Peace Studies." Gandhi Marg, New Delhi, India. January-March. (1990).

“Interdisciplinary Studies and Higher Education.” The Maxwell Review, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. (1993).

“Jus Gentium or The Law of Nations: New Paradigm for International Legal Order?" International Law Society Bulletin, Syracuse University College of Law, Syracuse, New York. (1994).

“Conflict Reduction Through Identity Affirmation: Transforming the Enemy or Ethnic ‘Other.” Peace and Conflict Studies, Spring 2003. (The research and writing of this article occurred while a Scholar in Residence at the Center for Conflict Resolution at Salisbury University.)