Village Earth is offering a new course, Community-driven Dispute Resolution, as a part of the Colorado State University Community-based Development Online Certificate Program. This course will cover community mediation, facilitation, collaborative problem solving, conflict resolution, conflict transformation and even conflict transcendence. Looking more closely at these processes and practices, we will explore their social and cultural significance and applicability in various communities. We will explore the power dynamics of disputes and their contexts and how we seek to find our own center in relation to such disputes. The course will be largely issue-focused, with an eye toward working with indigenous communities and in other sensitive cultural contexts. This course runs 5-weeks with the next session running July 13 – August 17, 2012. The deadline to register is July 8. Register online: https://sandbox.villageearth.org/wordpress/training-and-consulting/online/community-driven-dispute-resolution The course instructor, Lee Scharf, has worked as a mediator in community mediation, peer mediation in public school systems, court-ordered mediation within tribal, federal and community mediation contexts, has conducted large national facilitations and worked in environmental conflict resolution in all media. She has a Masters’ degree in Environmental Conflict Resolution and over twenty years’ experience as a mediator working with tribal nations. Ms. Scharf’s environmental conflict resolution taxonomy and annotated bibliography was published by the American Bar Association in 2002. She worked for the Environmental Protection Agency from 1991 until 2006, first in the Superfund Enforcement program and then in the Office of General Counsel in Washington, DC. From 2000 until 2006 Ms. Scharf was the National Tribal Mediation Lead for EPA through EPA’s Conflict and Prevention and Resolution Center. She is a Coordination Committee member of the Native Dispute Resolution program for the United States Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution. Ms Scharf is currently an Associate Fellow at Colorado State University’s Center for Collaborative Conservation in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is a member of the Executive Advisory Committee for this Center. For more information: https://sandbox.villageearth.org/wordpress/training-and-consulting/online/community-driven-dispute-resolution You may also contact the instructor for more information: [email protected]
GSLL 1514 – Challenges and Opportunities of Utilizing Traditional Knowledge in Climate Adaptation
This class will explore key concepts of resilience, vulnerability, adaptive capacity and social capital in the context of community exposure to climate change. We will engage in critical analysis of tools and methods for building resilience to climate change and will look at several case studies from around the world.