CRETE Comes to ACU
by Garry P. Bailey, Ph.D.
Academic Director and Associate Professor

A very important area of conflict resolution study is in school systems.  We address this area in our program through a course called Managing Conflict in Schools.  It is an option for students in the Master of Arts in the Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation (MACRR) program and is a requirement for  students in ACU’s Master of Education programs.

At the end of June, the Duncum Center partnered with ACU’s Department of Teacher Education to host its first CRETE (Conflict Resolution Education in Teacher Education) training for in-service and pre-service teachers.  The training centered on student bullying, peer mediation, teacher conflicts, teacher-administrator conflict, and school-community conflict.  Because of the richness of CRETE’s materials, we are now incorporating them into our Managing Conflict in Schools course.

Tricia Jones, CRETE founder and trainer, provided the one-day training.  Ms. Jones has a PhD in Communication and is a teacher and administrator at Temple University in Philadelphia. The training was funded by the JAMS Foundation (Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc.), a network of ADR Professionals that funds projects that support alternative dispute resolution.

I was especially pleased that Kipi Fleming Ward, an MACRR graduate and Conflict Resolution and Analysis doctoral student at Nova Southeastern, attended the training.  With an undergraduate degree from ACU in Education, Ms. Ward understands the gap that CRETE training fills for many teachers.  As a result, she is working toward becoming a CRETE trainer by the end of the year.  Ms. Ward is currently a course facilitator for the Duncum Center and I am thankful that she will soon be credentialed to provide CRETE Training services at ACU.

For more information about CRETE, visit their website.  For more information about the MACRR program, click here.