Building Bridges and Healing Divides: A Conversation About Mediation

Utah State University’s Heravi Peace Institute wants to talk about conflict.

Specifically, the HPI wants to explore the ways in which people can transform relationships and conversations through mediation. Two experts will be on campus on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to speak about how mediation can help solve some of the most pressing issues in the community.

The panel discussion features Karrie Ketchum, executive director of Utah Dispute Resolution and an expert legal mediator in Salt Lake City, who will discuss families in the context of the legal system. She will look at what works and what might be better addressed through the practice of narrative mediation.

Ketchum will be joined by Craig Gilliam, an international mediator who will focus on intra-faith divisions and how mediation can serve as a tool to bring divided faith communities together. The two guests will be in conversation with Chad Ford, associate professor of religious studies and HPI Board member. Ford himself has a decades-long experience in transformative mediation. The three will spend some time talking as well about how political polarization, in particular, is dividing families and congregations before explaining some of the techniques they are employing to counteract such discord.

The HPI considers this an opening event in a series of public dialogues about community, conflict transformation, and healing. The Institute, founded in 2022 through the generosity of USU alumnus Mehdi Heravi, hopes to equip Utahns, whether they be students or community members, to build skills for transforming conflict into peace. HPI-affiliated faculty and students are intentionally interdisciplinary, thus creating teams who approach problem-solving from multiple angles, including anthropology, communication studies, English, history, international studies, journalism, philosophy, political science, religious studies, social work, and sociology.

Interim HPI Director Tammy M. Proctor describes the work as both “exhausting and inspirational.”

“We just hosted a strategic planning retreat last weekend with nearly three dozen participants — both students and faculty — and the energy and creativity in the room were extraordinary,” Proctor said. “Given the wide range and complexity of the global and local challenges we face, the Institute looks to empower people to build bridges across divides and to establish or mend broken relationships.”

With generous funding from local donors, a national capacity-building grant, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the HPI has begun outreach to Utah communities and will launch a number of workshops, trainings, and dialogues in the near future.

The mediation event will be at 5 p.m. in the new Heravi Global Teaching and Learning Institute in the second-floor pavilion.

For more information on HPI’s five certificates, programming, student achievements and mission, please visit chass.usu.edu/peace-institute.