Preliminary Agenda 

Check-in to Hilton Alexandria Old Town

Address:  1767 King Street, Alexandria, Virginia

Nearest Metro Station:  King Street - Old Town Metro

Convening Registration

Location:  Washington/Jefferson Rooms, Hilton Alexandria Old Town

Welcome: Convening Opening

Location: Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Dinner

Location: Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Adjourn for the day

Breakfast on your own

Available from 6 AM to 8:30 AM

Location: King Street Tavern at Hilton Hotel

Welcome & Plan for the Day

Location:  Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Breakout One: Choice of Sessions (45 minutes)

• Georgetown University: The Jesuit Toolkit for Experiential Learning Aligns with Reflective Practices focus

The Georgetown University team will provide an interactive overview of two frameworks used within Jesuit education that have direct pertinence for experiential learning: the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) and the Examen. IPP is typically used in the design/creation phase of an experiential learning opportunity; and the Examen is a reflective practice typically done at the "end" of an experiential learning opportunity or as a daily check-in. 

• The George Washington University: Asset Framing for Community Engagement Aligns with Civic Identity focus

The George Washington University team draws on the work of Trabian Shorters to introduce students to “asset-framing” – and how our words and actions shape our relationships. The team will introduce this framework; explain how they use it with students; and provide opportunity to try on some of their activities. 

• Middlebury College: Conflict Analysis Workshop Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The Middlebury College team will provide an interactive session introducing the conflict analysis workshop template piloted by their experiential programs this past summer. The workshop draws on the work of John Paul Lederach (Little Book of Conflict Transformation) and can be easily modified to align with a range of programs and contexts. At Middlebury, it was developed and offered as a peer-facilitator program.

Breakout Two: Choice of Sessions (45 minutes)

• Berea College: Identifying and Applying your Civic Personality to Issues You Care About Aligns with Civic Identity focus

The Berea College team will provide an interactive introduction to the curricular tools and processes they use to support students to identify their civic values; to consider how these values are linked to emergent state issues; and to identify actions they might take around the issues that matter most to them. 

• Washington & Lee University: Blue Ridge Mile Driver License Clinic Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The Washington and Lee team will introduce the Blue Ridge Mile Driver License Clinic as an example of shifting power dynamics in structural conflict, moving the conflict away from individuals and towards a shared problem. The clinic, offered in partnership with Drive-To-Work, a non-profit law firm, and the 25th District Court, trains students to support individuals seeking to acquire or retain their driver’s licenses, which are crucial for rural residents. Conference participants will break into groups to identify power structures in their communities where conflict might shift to solving a shared problem. Identify the adverse system, stakeholders, potential incentives and motivations, and opportunities for realignment. 

• University of Oklahoma: Beyond Numbers: Memory Mapping Reimagined  Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The University of Oklahoma workshop challenges how lives reduced to statistics are interpreted and retold. Participants will build and contrast stories developed from data with actual life stories from their local contexts/communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, the Maldives and Colombia. The activity will restore the complexity of human experience and reflect on the risks of reducing people to data, and the responsibility to carry forward human dignity. 

Breakout Three: Choice of Sessions (80 minutes)

• Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP): Conflict Transformation Curriculum Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

Jen Handy, Executive Director of SHECP, will introduce SHECP’s conflict transformation curriculum. The curriculum equips students with the theoretical foundations and practical tools needed to navigate the interpersonal and systemic conflicts that often arise in anti-poverty work – and the students’ internships. Jen will provide an overview of the curriculum, its evolution, and sample assignments. 

• Oberlin College & Conservatory: Going Barefoot: Choosing Vulnerability-Based Dialogue in Turbulent Times Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The Oberlin team will share the framework and impacts of Barefoot Dialogues – and facilitate a shortened version of this dialogic practice. Participants will learn about - and engage with – tools that assist small groups in vulnerability-based dialogue, build trust, and empower individuals and groups to seize their inward and collective power. 

Lunch

Opt-In Conversation Circle with Dr April Edwell, Guest Speaker and Projects for Peace Alumni Award Winner

Location:  Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Breakout Four: Choice of Sessions (45 minutes)

• University of Notre Dame: Transforming Tension: Understanding Self and Situation Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The Notre Dame team will facilitate engagement with John Paul Lederach’s four dimensions of conflict (personal, relational, structural, and cultural).* Participants will consider and apply these dimensions to specific contexts, develop ideas for diagnosis and action, and gain new perspectives on conflict and conflict transformation. *From his Little Book of Conflict Transformation. 

• Swarthmore College: Systems Thinking for Social Change Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

The Swarthmore team will share their process of introducing students to systems thinking as a practical way of analyzing and responding to complex social challenges. This will include a focus on feedback loops (what they are, why they matter, and how to create them when analyzing a system) and a sharing of system maps and their project applications. 

• Grinnell College: Writing through Conflict Aligns with Reflective Practices focus

The Grinnell team will share the space they have created for students, faculty, and staff to write about and process the sense of void, distress or conflict that can arise from the gap between where we live and where we are from. “Writing Through Conflict” provides opportunity to share this process with a group of people that may not face the same conflict but are similarly trying to process, explain, and potentially share the impacts of conflict at home. 

• Middlebury Institute for International Studies: Internship Practicum: Structured and Self-Directed Learning 

The MIIS team will share their internship practicum model. Highlighting its core elements; academic components; and how self-directed activities complement formal learning. The student panel will connect the model to their internship experiences (with FAO and UNICEF) and share the impacts of experiential learning on their academic, professional, and civic development. 

Breakout Five: Choice of Sessions (45 minutes)

• Bucknell University: Mapping Civic Identity: Who We Are, Who We Strive to Be Aligns with Civic Identity focus

The Bucknell team activity is an asset-based and dialogue-driven approach to civic identity development. Through sharing personal and cultural stories, mapping and building upon existing assets, and connecting those assets to community aspirations, participants begin to shift the lens of their current identity from deficit to a collective vision of who they strive to be together. 

• Manchester University:  Neighborhood Peacebuilding Aligns with Civic Identity focus

The Manchester team will lead an interactive exploration of neighborliness as a foundation for local peacebuilding. Drawing on Peace Studies and Environmental Studies collaborative projects, they will examine how small-scale, place-based efforts can model sustainable and just relationships. Followed by a guided exercise in which participants will map their own “neighborhoods” and consider concrete ways of strengthening relationships. 

• Macalester University: Addressing Conflict from the Ground Up in Rwanda and Palestine  Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus

Macalester College students will discuss their efforts addressing topics of conflict and violence with communities experiencing genocide in Rwanda (and the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Palestine. They will share how those experiences impacted them personally as well as reflect on how it impacted their own academic institution. This will include how their work aligned with their institution's values but also where it conflicted. 

• Wellesley College: The Inclusion Initiative: Empowering Peer Facilitators to Challenge Microaggression Aligns with Conflict Transformation focus 

The Wellesley team will focus on their peer-facilitator program that addresses microaggressions and promotes inclusive campus culture within academic and social environments. The team will describe the program’s development and implementation; highlight a workshop specific to STEM lab settings; and share practical strategies for partnering with faculty and student organizations. 

Break

Location: Washington/Jefferson Rooms

A Commitment to Peacebuilding & Conflict Transformation 

Dr. April Edwell, 2026 Projects for Peace Alumni Award Winner in conversation with Betsy Vegso, Projects for Peace

Dr. April Edwell (she/they) is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and the winner of the 2025 Projects for Peace Alumni Award. Dr. Edwell received a 2007 Projects for Peace grant as an undergraduate at Duke University that focused on reducing barriers to educational access for young Kenyan women. Since then, her work has evolved from addressing global educational disparities to tackling inequities in healthcare. 

Location:  Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Reflections on the Day

Location: Washington/Jefferson Rooms

Adjourn

Dinner at Hummingbird Bar & Kitchen

Address:  220 South Union Street, Old Town Alexandria

Make your way to this waterfront restaurant, just over a mile from the Hilton hotel. Walking, traveling by the free King Street Trolley, or a very short Uber/Lyft ride are all options.