The Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS) has released Navigating Conflicts: A Guide for Campus Leaders and Public Safety Personnel which is a framework to help campus leaders and public safety professionals understand conflicts and make informed decisions to address them. It was developed in partnership with the Divided Community Project at The Ohio State University.
The Guide offers campus administration and public safety leaders a framework, supported by practical ideas and tools, for dealing with campus conflict as they plan for a safe beginning of the academic year. The Guide is built on the understanding that conflict plays a valuable and necessary role on campuses, and that divergent views, robust discourse and disagreement can produce new ideas and stronger relationships. This resource was designed to help campuses move disagreements which are inherent to academic life towards peaceful outcomes, regardless of viewpoint.
The publication includes:
- Explanations of the critical topics of awareness, communication, support, and coordination – drawing on the learnings from the fields of conflict management and dispute resolution, as well as the experiences of campus leaders.
- A toolkit for rapid response to campus conflict. The toolkit condenses the Guide’s key learnings into checklists for quick implementation.
- An interactive simulation, “Nexera University.” The simulation is a participatory role play exercise which calls on participants to plan, negotiate and communicate responses in real time based on a hypothetical scenario. The simulation was not created to evaluate campus readiness or suggest a “perfect response,” but instead to help campus leaders open up new lines of communication, inventory their relationships, reflect, and plan effectively.
