Featured Events

A needed next step is to listen and learn what is going on in schools and their communities, and then assist with the systemic and structural issues to are revealed. Community mediation centers excel at this task. To do otherwise will permit the continued facilitation by those who wish to amplify underlying divides and past disagreements among school board members, parents and others who live within the community to continue to disrupt decision making that impacts the education of our community’s children.

We will have that conversation on how to begin, continue or strengthen your current connections with school boards. We will explore how to:

Define “safe and inclusive communities” and then to create opportunities that remind people of their common values so that they can work together to restore a sense of community and belonging.
Help school boards work with communities to create better procedures and policies for public engagement in schools – including transparency issues
Provide space to discuss how to facilitate conversations about hot button issues such as history education, which will gain trust, and does not facilitate distrust.

When you register, you be asked to complete a brief survey that will help us understand the scope of issues school boards and CMCs are facing. We also will close the session with a survey of CMC needs, so that we may begin the process of co-creating a tool kit/pathway for good trouble: leaning into the acupuncture points for enhancing education.

Conversations on race are happening all around us, including our social media feeds. And there’s a lot to talk about. We’re providing a 1-hour training with a 15 minute Q&A on how to host conversations about Race using our conversation model.

In this training, we will:

Offer basic tools and understanding to empower you to organize your own Living Room Conversation
Go over common pitfalls we might run into engaging in conversations about Race
Invite you to share your motivation and plans to host/organize
Have time for Q&A with our trainers

Using modules from the Council on Foreign Relations’ World101 website and timely pieces from The New York Times, we invite you to join for a lively facilitated conversation filled with civil discourse and, most importantly, your voice. All AASCU-affiliated students, faculty, and staff welcome!

Political polarization is at an all-time high, and voters expend significant energy fighting to enact the “right” policies at all levels of government.

But is this the best way to get good policy? Ilya Somin, Law Professor at George Mason University, argues that there is another alternative that is much more effective: allowing voters to move to places that better align with their preference.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion about the latest edition of Professor Somin’s book, Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.

Together with Governance Director Jonathan Bydlak, Somin will address whether the ballot box is the most efficacious way to empower people and achieve beneficial change, how encouraging more people to “vote with their feet” can improve domestic and international living conditions, and how foot-voting can ultimately encourage governing diversity.

As a special bonus, R Street will send autographed copies of the latest edition of the book to five lucky attendees!

With a Supreme Court that tilts conservative, the future of the highest court is contentious. All eyes are on Justice Amy Coney Barrett as she fills the seat long-held by Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Considering that Barrett’s nomination process was controversial amid a divided government, issues like abortion rights and gun ownership that are being debated in the Supreme Court now are likely to split along partisan lines again. 

How will the power struggle between the Democratic executive branch and the conservative bench in the court play out? This discussion features the Center’s Spring 2022 Fellows Ralph Neas, Todd Purdum, and Amy Turk in conversation with Co-Directors Mike Murphy and Bob Shrum. 

Featuring:

Ralph Neas – Former Executive Director, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Senior Counsel on Voting Rights, The Century Foundation; Spring 2022 Fellow, Center for the Political Future

Amy Turk, LCSW – Social Worker; CEO, Downtown Women’s Center; Spring 2022 Fellow, Center for the Political Future

Todd S. Purdum – Journalist, Former National Editor and Political Correspondent for Vanity Fair; Spring 2022 Fellow, Center for the Political Future

Bob Shrum – Director, Center for the Political Future; Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, USC Dornsife

Mike Murphy – Co-Director, Center for the Political Future; NBC Political Analyst

Here’s the link to register for the conversation: https://usc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8cLz-Q0RQeOmuHxO9OMjqw  

Join the Children and Youth ADR Working Group in their monthly webinar. An Arts-Based Approach to Mediation and will be led by Joan Marie Kelly, a Senior Lecturer at Nanyang Technological University. 

This 90-minute conversation event will be on January 21st, 2022, at 6 pm EST (-5 UTC). Please use the Time Zone Converter to determine when this engaging conversation will be in your time zone.