Frostburg State University’s “Sustaining Campus and Community” dialogue series will continue for another year of facilitated sessions aimed at helping the community strengthen neighborhood relationships and foster a nonviolent, civil culture. The series, supported by FSU, Maryland Judiciary’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office and Mountainside Community Mediation Center, will next feature a retreat for invited key stakeholders on Tuesday, Aug. 20, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Lyric Theater at 20 E. Main St. in Frostburg. Subsequent dialogue sessions, open to the public, are scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 12, and Tuesday, Oct. 15, also at 5:30 p.m. in the Lyric Theater. The dialogue sessions, initiated in spring 2012, convene students, year-round residents, local officials and University leaders to discuss issues and create new opportunities for collaborative problem-solving and coalition-building in Frostburg. Sessions to date have produced action groups that created tangible outcomes, along with progress on projects that will require more sustained effort. For example, the slogan “Frostburg … It’s just cooler here!” was created for community use and Bobcat paw prints were painted on Bowery Street. Additionally, short-term residents (students) and long-term residents (local families) are gathering through an “adopt a student” program. Students and campus and community leadership have also begun discussions to develop a proposal for an off-campus housing office at FSU. In this second year of the series, community members will come together to create tangible solutions for deeper-level, sensitive and structurally challenging town and gown tensions that affect safe, secure living conditions and civil relationships between long-term and short-term residents in the college town. Nationally recognized conflict resolution scholar-practitioners Dr. Frank Dukes, lecturer and director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia, and Dr. Marvin Johnson, founder and executive director of the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution, will continue to help facilitate the sessions, along with project manager Dr. Elesha L. Ruminski, chair of FSU’s Department of Communication Studies and an associate professor in that department. Details and documentary segments about the project are available at frostburg.edu/dept/cmst/dialogue-series/. Those interested in being part of this community-building effort should contact Ruminski at [email protected] or 301-687-4480.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:26:37 +0000
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