Lipscomb launches National Institute for Conflict Management
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Lipscomb University President Randy Lowry announced today that the school will open the Institute for Conflict Management (“ICM”) this coming fall. The ICM will be a comprehensive resource for students, professionals, businesses, governmental entities and other organizations for education and growth in the ever-expanding field of conflict and dispute resolution.
“It will be a local, regional and national resource for anyone interested in learning and applying the innovative concepts of conflict resolution in their professional and personal lives.” Lowry said. “The focus will be on the practical applications of theory. We envision the ICM taking its place as the southeast’s counterpart to national leaders in the field such as Pepperdine University on the west coast and Harvard University in the northeast.”
To mark its fall 2006 opening, the ICM will host a conference on September 19 featuring British humanitarian and author Terry Waite. Waite served as a hostage negotiator for the Church of England in Beirut, Lebanon in 1987, only to be held hostage himself by the Islamic Jihad in February of that year. Later in the year the Institute’s inaugural healthcare dialogue event will be co-hosted by the Nashville Health Care Council. The conference will feature nationally recognized experts involved in conflict resolution in the nation’s fastest growing and Nashville’s largest segment of the economy: healthcare. In spring 2007, the ICM will host the National Conference on Dispute Resolution in Employment in association with Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. Former Special Prosecutor and current Pepperdine Law School Dean Kenneth Starr will be the keynote speaker for this event.
The ICM has already secured funding in the amount of $500,000 for the start-up operational costs of its first three years of operation. Lipscomb has committed to raising funds totaling over $3 million for the first three years of the ICR’s existence. These funds will be sought from sources such as charitable foundations, federal and state grant sources and individual donors. The Institute will be housed on the third floor of Lipscomb’s new state-of-the-art $12 million learning facility: The Ezell Center. Approximately 77,000 square feet of total space has been created at the Ezell Center featuring the latest technology and the newest creative learning environment in Nashville.
The executive director of the ICM will be Larry Bridgesmith, attorney and former partner with Waller Lansden Dortch and Davis. Bridgesmith has had extensive training in dispute resolution and has worked closely with both Dr. Lowry and the Straus Institute in the development and analysis of new techniques and trends in the field. Bridgesmith stated, “The future of a healthy economy and the return to a civil society depends on advancing the knowledge and skills of conflict resolution. Conflict is inevitable. Our capacity to successfully deal with conflict is not a natural skill, but a learned art.
I believe that 30 years of practice as a litigator and legal advisor have prepared me to help others learn and apply the many varied tools of dispute resolution. This is an opportunity for me to take my professional life to a new and exciting level.”
“We are pleased and honored to have Mr. Waite and Dean Starr on our campus to mark the center’s first year in existence and look forward to hearing their unique perspectives on the art and science of conflict resolution,” said Lowry.
The Institute’s inaugural healthcare dialogue event is being planned for the Spring of 2007 and will be co-hosted by the Nashville Health Care Council. The conference will feature nationally recognized experts involved in conflict resolution in the nation’s fastest growing and Nashville’s largest segment of the economy: healthcare.
Conflict resolution has made an impact across the nation as more and more people and organizations seek creative and productive methods of resolving problems and strengthening relationships. The Straus Institute, which Lowry founded and oversaw before coming to Lipscomb, has played a major role in this, having been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as the top center for dispute resolution in the nation. Lowry will draw on his extensive experience with Straus in overseeing Lipscomb’s center, but the ICR will by no means be a carbon copy of its California cousin, especially with the ICR’s particular emphasis on health care conflict management. Furthermore, the ICM will be housed in a multi-disciplinary graduate school rather than a law school in order to advance its interdisciplinary approaches to conflict resolution.
“A centerpiece of the ICM will be the National Center for Health Care Conflict Resolution,” said Bridgesmith. “Conflict resolution has taken hold in many places but health care providers have yet to wholly embrace the concept, even though in the places it has been tried the dividends have been enormous. The reason is simple: health care providers haven’t been given the opportunity to learn and apply these concepts because there has been no one to provide the opportunity. We think it’s time to change that and with Nashville’s substantial health care industry, we think Lipscomb is in a perfect spot to get that ball rolling to make an immediate impact in the industry.”
Health care won’t be the ICM’s only focus, however, as the center will also offer courses and training in conflict resolution in education, business, employment, religious organizations and other areas. Program offerings will include:
• Masters Degree - A Master of Arts Degree program in Dispute Resolution.
• Certificate Program - Fifteen hours of coursework culminating in a certificate in conflict resolution should be an especially popular offering. This program will be open to graduate students, professionals and other interested parties in the community who seek training and/or certification in dispute resolution.
• Conflict Resolution Graduate Concentration - Lipscomb students enrolled in Masters’ programs in Business, Counseling, Education and Religious Studies will have the opportunity to elect an emphasis in dispute resolution, which will track the conflict resolution certification course of study.
• Professional Training - The ICM will also provide specialized advanced programming in mediating the litigated case, advanced mediation training and Rule 31 mediator qualification to dispute resolution professionals from across the state.