 |
US-Israeli Policies Not Yet Working with Damascus The anti-diplomacy that has characterized American foreign policy for eight miserable years is coming to an end with the end of the Bush White House. But that does not mean that clear alternatives exist in complex places like Syria and its position in the Northern Belt of the Middle East. It is also true that when it comes to Syria, Israel is well ahead of the United States leadership in seeing opportunities. But Israel has been overly intimidated by the White House and its responses have been thus far clumsy and uncreative. Part of the reason for this is the massive ignorance of the inner workings of Syria that one finds in both Israel and the United States. I was told by a top former diplomat in Israel, who is the most... |
 |
ICAR Launches Mentor Program For second-year ICAR M.S. student Tommy Tomiyama, a resume and a quick interview are not the stuff of meaningful professional relationships. "I tend to believe in continuous one-on-one instruction, instead of one-shot, office-hour meetings where you have to figure everything out from that brief conversation," he said. So when Tommy learned about the new Advisory Board mentoring program, which was launched in February, he knew he wanted to take part. There are 18 students and seven Board members participating in the program. The first meeting on February 12 was "spectacular—the number of students who came, the energy in the room, and on a night when there was an ice storm," recalled Board Chair K.C... |
Upcoming ICAR Community EventsFor more info on events, email [email protected] April 4: April 8: April 8: April 10: April 11: Entire events listing available at http://icar.gmu.edu/events.htm... |
|
 |
Darfur, Uganda Victims' Needs Focus of ICAR Prof's Lecture Eight evenings of thought-provoking discussion. Eight minds grappling with the important. That is the promo for the Vision Series lectures for Academic Year 2007-08 at George Mason University. On Monday, March 17, 2008, one of those eight voices was our own Dr. Susan F. Hirsch, Associate Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Bravo to Susan for her outstanding lecture on Satisfying Victims and Healing Society—the Promise of Justice after Extreme Violence. Dr. Hirsch spoke not just from her academic, anthropological research on human responses to extreme violence—murder, rape, genocide—but also from her personal experience as a victim and... |
Recent ICAR Journal Articles, Op-Eds and Letters to the EditorCalling for Clarity in Iraq U.N. Security Council Must Act Preemptively on Climate Change Identity, Autonomy, and Conflict in Republics of Russia and Ukraine The American Elections: Prospects for a New US Foreign Policy No to Nepotism A Mufti, A Christian, and a Rabbi A Debate That's Way... |
|
 |
ICAR News Network: Opinion As the world has turned its attention to China in preparation for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, history has begun to repeat itself. In watching the events play themselves out among the Tibetans, one cannot help but remember the events of April 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Both protests are led by individuals who possess great emotional and psychological influence over their fellow citizens. In Tiananmen, it was students calling workers into the streets to stand up for a more representative system of government. In Tibet, it is monks summoning the laity to protest the Chinese government's attempts to control the religious life of the Tibetan people and the government's policy of resettling ethnically Han peoples from the east to... |
 |
Michael Lawrence Michael Lawrence, a graduate certificate student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), has had an interest in labor management issues for a long time. Beginning as a news writer and engineer at NBC Radio Network in New York, where he was involved in a 17-week strike, Michael also worked at National Public Radio, and for the past seven years at United States Senate Radio-TV as the Senior Media Relations Coordinator. As a federal employee, he was introduced to the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service (FMCS) which seeks to mediate labor disputes to shorten times of strikes. "This opened my mind up about mediation and through an informational interview with the deputy of FMCS I was told there were a... |
 |
Terryne Murphy As the Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), Terryne Murphy found herself in the middle of workplace conflicts. Murphy, a graduate certificate student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR), wanted to further her understanding on how to deal with conflict in a positive way within her agency. At the time, Murphy was taking psychology classes at GMU. Reading up on what ICAR had to offer, she thought that it would be a perfect fit to help her professionally. Murphy ultimately decided to enroll in ICAR's Advanced Skills track. At EOIR, Murphy oversees the operations contract responsible for maintaining IT systems. "We have two... |
 |
ICAR Co-Hosts Career Fair with SPPThe School of Public Policy and the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University hosted a career fair on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, on the Arlington Campus. This year we had 28 employers in attendance and 25 ICAR students. Our students arrived prepared with resumes and were all dressed professionally. Staff could tell through the hum of excited voices and wide smiles of both students and employers that great connections were being made. Employers noted that they were quite impressed with the quality of ICAR students in attendance and several... |