2026 Healing Conversations Conference and Workshops

Healing Conversations
Rebuilding Community and Civility 


March 25th & 26th, 2026
 

The conference and workshops will bring together nationally and internationally renowned leaders in the fields of mediation and peacebuilding to address one of the most pressing questions of our time: How do we heal the significant and threatening divisions within our relationships and society through dialogue and reconciliation? The conference will be held on Wednesday, March 25th and is free and open to the public and hosted in the UVU Fulton Library, Room 120 and online via YouTube Live. The workshops will be held on Thursday, March 26th. Those interested in attending the workshops are invited to contact Lynn England at [email protected].

 

This event is part of the J. Bonner Ritchie Peace Conference series and is co-sponsored in partnership with UVU Our Better Selves, 
UVU's Center for the Study of Ethics, and UVU's Center for Constitutional Studies & Civic Thought & Leadership Initiative. 

 

Conference recording

Schedule of Events

Wednesday, March 25th

10:00 to
10:50 a.m.
FL - 120
Collective Healing After Civic Conflict: Learning from 50 years of Conflict and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

Sara Cook 
Director of Cook Consultancy: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

11:00 to
11:50 a.m.
FL - 120
Restorative Justice for such a Time as This

 

Carl Stauffer

Formerly, Senior Expert on Reconciliation, United States Institute of Peace

 

12:00 to
12:50 p.m.
FL - 120
Identity, Dialogue, and Truth: Frederick Douglass and the Constitution as Common Ground

Eleesha Tucker
Constitutional Literacy Fellow in the Center for Constiutition Studies, UVU

1:00 to
1:50 p.m.
FL - 120
Creating the Container: Engaging in Dialogues We Would Rather Avoid

Rae Kyritsi

Director, Caldera Dialogue and Consulting Services

 

pizza and beverages will be served

2:00 to
2:50 p.m.
FL - 120
The Role of Cultural Awareness in Education: Bridging Social and Political Polarization

Bryan Waite, PhD.

Associate Dean of the College of Health and Public Service, UVU

3:00 to
3:50 p.m.
FL - 120
The Essentials of Being a Healer Now!

 

Presenters Panel

Sara Cook, Carl Stauffer, Rae Kyritsi, Eleesha Tucker, Bryan Waite

For more information, contact Courtney Burns at [email protected]

Participants

Sara Cook
Director, Cook Consultancy
Sara Cook is the Director of Cook Consultancy: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. Sara is a social worker and conflict response specialist working with people affected by conflict in Northern Ireland and internationally.   Her peacebuilding work includes mediation, dialogue, and storytelling encounters between conflict-affected populations.  Sara also addresses the psychosocial impact of peacebuilding and humanitarian work on practitioners. Sara has provided trauma response and resiliency training to people affected by conflict from over 50 countries, with a recent focus on Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan. She has promoted the participation of women and girls in peacebuilding work. 
 
Carl Stauffer
Formerly, Senior Expert on Reconciliation, United States Institute of Peace
Carl Stauffer has been the Senior Expert on Reconciliation at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). He comes to USIP with 30 years of experience in 37 countries as both a practitioner and academic. Prior to joining USIP, Carl was associate professor at the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University and functioned as the academic director of the Caux Scholars Program in Switzerland. Carl is an expert in conflict transformation, post-war reconstruction and reconciliation processes. He is currently ministering in a Mennonite community.
 
Rae Kyritsi
Director, Caldera Dialogue and Consulting Services
Rae Kyritsi is a dispute resolution specialist working in the upper Midwest. Rae is the founder of Caldera Dialogue and Consulting Services supporting the development of conflict management programs, change management, grievance processes, and community dialogue. Rae teaches mediation, arbitration, and negotiation at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Rae was the Programs Director at the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago for ten years. Rae is a certified mediator of civil, criminal, elder, and family disputes and a certified mediation trainer.
 
Eleesha Tucker
Constitutional Literacy Fellow in the Center for Consitutional Studies, UVU
Eleesha is the executive director of the Utah 3Rs Project, which encourages understanding of the right of conscience, the responsibility to protect that right in others, and the civic duty to engage respectfully in civic discourse. Eleesha holds a Master of Arts in American Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Arts in History Teaching from Brigham Young University. She teaches the general education requirement American Heritage at Utah Valley University. Prior to 3Rs and UVU, she served as the Director of Education for the oldest patriotic organization in the United States, the Society of the Cincinnati, formed by the officers of the Continental Army during George Washington's presidency.
 
Bryan Waite, PhD.
Associate Dean of the College of Health and Public Service, UVU
Dr. Bryan R. Waite is currently Associate Dean of the College of Health and Public Service at Utah Valley University (UVU). He is a Professor of Multicultural and Bilingual Education and Language Acquisition Theories and Methods and has served as the Department Chair of Secondary and Special Education in the School of Education at UVU.  He also worked as the Director for Global/Intercultural Academic Programming at UVU. Originally from Texas and New Mexico, Dr. Waite has a BA from the University of Texas at Austin in Spanish, an MA in Spanish Education from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Equity and Cultural Diversity also from the University of Colorado at Boulder.


 

 

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