(copy) ROUNDTABLE BREAKFAST: Adaptive Mediation: Navigating Conflict Dynamics and Derailers

ACR-GNY & CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College present:

ADAPTIVE MEDIATION: NAVIGATING CONFLICT DYNAMICS AND DERAILERS

Peter T. Coleman

Join Peter T. Coleman, Professor of Psychology and Education, and Director of the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College, Columbia University, who will provide an overview of his team's model of adaptive mediation. Dr. Coleman will share insights from a project he and his team began in 2012 designed to engage with experienced mediators to develop a grounded theory of mediation. Through a series of surveys, interviews, and focus groups, his team has been developing a model that focuses on better understanding the most important situational challenges to mediation that affect mediators' decisions and behaviors. This model argues for the utility of an adaptive or situationally contingent approach to mediation, where mediators learn to employ different strategies in response to fundamentally different challenges they face in individual meditations. Dr. Coleman's presentation will explore what the most basic challenges to mediation are, and he will provide some insights gained about how mediators effectively adapt and respond to situational challenges as they ebb and flow in conflict situations. 

DR. PETER T. COLEMAN is Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University where he holds a joint-appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. Dr. Coleman directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MD-ICCCR) and the Institute for Psychological Science and Practice (IPSP) at Teachers College, and is Executive Director of the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC⁴) at The Earth Institute. Dr. Coleman’s current research focuses on conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom as meta-competencies for navigating conflict constructively across all levels, and includes projects on adaptive negotiation and mediation dynamics, cross-cultural adaptivity, optimality of motivational dynamics in conflict, justice and polarization, multicultural conflict, intractable conflict, and sustainable peace.

In 2003, he became the first recipient of the Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association (APA), Division 48: Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, and in 2015 was awarded the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award by the APA and a Marie Curie Fellowship from The EU. Dr. Coleman edited the award-winning Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (2000, 2006, 2014) and his other books include The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts (2011) and Making Conflict Work: Navigating Disagreement Up and Down Your Organization (2014). He is also a member of the United Nations Mediation Support Unit’s Academic Advisory Council, is a founding board member of the Gbowee Peace Foundation USA, and is a New York State certified mediator and experienced consultant.