I found the following quote in some papers buried in a pile on my desk. My notes say it was from Joann C. Guter in Discover but I haven’t been able to track it down (if you know more about the original source, I welcome the information!):
Practice doesn’t make perfect, nor is it supposed to. […]

I attended a blogging conference last weekend, a first for me. It was SOBCon ‘07 and the sense of community and affiliation in the room was powerful. It turns out that relationship bloggers hug as much as some mediators, and this bunch was just as good at creating meaningful conversation.
During one of the many excellent […]

In many towns here in New England, citizens come together at least once a year for Town Meeting Day, when the business of the community is conducted.
As a conflict practitioner, I am always interested in how people engage one another and debate the life of the community. Sometimes the differences are dealt with well and […]

I just watched a re-run of Tom Hanks interviewed on Inside the Actor’s Studio. In a discussion with host James Lipton, Hanks commented that,
“The death of acting is self-consciousness.”
Mediation, too. It brings to mind Michael Lang’s text, The Art of Mediation, in which he discusses the ability to reflect in action as well as on […]

Woodbury welcomed a talented, accomplished new cohort of master’s students this week and I worked with them for the first two days of their on-campus residency. When I returned to my office later in the week, I sat down to craft my lesson plan for Conflict Intervention Skills, a class I’m helping teach to master’s […]

by Ginny Sassaman, M.S.
Last night, in the middle of a community “movie night” viewing of High Fidelity, I watched Ian (Tim Robbins) approach Rob (John Cusack). At that point in the movie, Rob’s former and possibly future girlfriend has moved in with Ian. The two men are definitely in conflict. Then, unexpectedly, Ian announces […]

by Amy Beth Kessinger, M.S. 
I realized early on in mediation training that I needed to examine the ways in which my language limits my effectiveness as a conflict intervener. I may understand the function of an open-ended question, or summary, or even a reframe, but how can I apply my understanding to useful ends […]

by Amy Beth Kessinger, M.S.
Last week, I facilitated a mother/daughter mediation. I’ve been working with this family in another professional capacity for four years and simply put, they trust me; so it made sense to mediate when the mom approached me about a very serious dispute between her and her daughter.
Yet, my book-learning brain […]

What does depth of mediation education have to do with the scope of an ADR professional’s dreams and aspirations? Maybe more than I was aware.
A while back, one of our graduates emailed the faculty on this very topic. Lisa Bedinger, M.S., first studied at Woodbury in our year-long mediation certificate program. She returned […]

Geoff Sharp broke my heart this afternoon.
An animal lover, I was deeply saddened by his story and my mental images of the dying horses. A mediator, I was captivated at the same time. And a teacher, I felt the truth of his words.
You can find Geoff’s mediator blah…blah… post at Rehearsing in Poetry But […]