Policy Practicum: Stanford Conflict Resolution Lab

Client: Stanford University Office of the Provost, https://provost.stanford.edu. From the increasingly tense dynamics of the classroom and workplace to those of social media, our values and relationships are constantly being challenged. The array of conflict resolution policies, practices, and systems on Stanford's campus support our community in reestablishing guiding principles and addressing instances of harm and intolerance. Such processes are an act of community caretaking as we build healthier environments for our students, staff, and faculty. While these processes are critical to the wellbeing of Stanford, the structure and decentralization of the University often makes it difficult for conflict resolution practitioners to effectively communicate across campus, guide community members to the appropriate process, identify where services are being replicated or missing, compare data, and share best practices. On the other hand, this type of decentralization and subsequent independence provides practitioners an opportunity to creatively design meaningful processes for those they serve. This policy lab seeks to evaluate the benefits and possibilities of increased partnership between Stanford's conflict resolution practitioners/processes. It takes into consideration the multiple policies, practices, and systems across Stanford's campus and explores the study and application of dispute system design, mediation, and community-based restorative justice and peacemaking. Over the course of the quarter, students will analyze related policy and theory as well as conduct interviews, focus groups, and surveys of relevant parties at Stanford and peer institutions. Students will be challenged to think critically about innovative pathways for conflict resolution in a complex environment with multiple groups of stakeholders whose day-to-day lives, education, and careers are influenced by these conflict resolution processes. Specifically, students will be separated into teams and asked to generate reports which answer the following questions: 1. Would greater unification across Stanford's conflict resolution policies, practices, and systems be useful in building more consistent and effective processes? How do these benefits weigh against those derived from our current, independent conflict resolution processes? 2. Should data on conflict resolution at Stanford be collected in a more uniform way across the university? If so, what information must be collected and how should relevant parties then share this data across campus? 3. How do the structure and data collection mechanisms of Stanford's conflict resolution processes compare to peer institutions? What lessons can we learn from these peer institutions and what would be useful to implement at Stanford? Stanford's Office of the Provost serves as the client for this policy lab. Students will frequently engage with conflict resolution practitioners across the University and at peer institutions to develop their final reports. These recommendations will be presented by students to the client at the end of the quarter and then considered by the Office of the Provost for future implementation at the University. This policy lab seeks law students and graduate and well-qualified undergraduate students in programs such as sociology, CSRE, political science, psychology, philosophy, and others. The lab seeks graduate students from the law, education, and business schools, and from Sociology and other fields that emphasize peace studies and/or conflict resolution. After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer, with consent of the instructor, from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement Students enrolled in Section 01 will be graded H/P/R/F in Autumn Quater and MP/R/F in Spring Quarter. Students approved to take the course for R-credit will be graded H/P/R/F. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Performance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available on the SLS website (Click Courses at the bottom of the homepage and then click Consent of Instructor Forms). See Consent Application Form for instructions and submission deadline.