Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism. Support independent student journalism.
The Dartmouth
July 8, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Mediation program increasingly used

Created four years ago, the Dartmouth College Mediation Center has grown from a handful of students to an organization that is becoming increasingly involved in settling disputes on campus.

And members of the DCMC say they would like to like to see it play an even larger role in settling conflicts between friends or roommates, or those who are brought before the Committee on Standards. COS is the College's undergraduate judicial body.

Shara Frase '95, who has been involved with the DCMC since it was created in 1991, said, "I would like to see students know it's a resource."

Frase said she would like Undergraduate Advisors to use mediation as a way to handle conflict between roommates.

She also said the DCMC has recently offered its services to members of the Student Assembly.

"Mediation does not decide who is right -- it helps two people come to a decision themselves," Frase said."Instead of the decision being handed down, they come to it on their own."

Marcia Kelly, the undergraduate judicial affairs officer, said she sometimes recommends that students go through mediation before a COS hearing.

"The value is that students are able to work through their animosity toward one another," she said. "That helps the hearing process go more easily."

Although mediation does not replace a COS hearing, it shows initiative on the part of the students and "it might impact the final decision," Rabbi Daniel Siegel said. Siegel is the College's Jewish Chaplain and the adviser for the DCMC.

Kelly could not say exactly how many students involved in COS hearings had gone through mediation.

"I can say that over the past two years, some have gone through mediation at my recommendation or at the recommendation of the other deans," Kelly said.

The DCMC was founded in the summer of 1991 by Siegel and former Environmental Studies Professor Jack Shepherd, who was also the director of War and Peace Studies.

One of the War and Peace Studies courses, "Conflict Resolution in International Politics," required students to undergo 24 hours of mediation training.

After Shepherd left the College in the summer of 1993 to become the Director of Global Studies at Cambridge University, the course was effectively canceled and Siegel took over as adviser for the DCMC.

The DCMC is now part of the Tucker Foundation and trains its mediators independently. With the help of a Bildner Grant, it has been able to train students, faculty and administrators in conflict mediation.

This fall, Siegel said he helped train 13 students, 10 administrators and two faculty members in conflict resolution.

Of the 25, about 14 have completed the full 30 hours necessary to be qualified to mediate disputes.

According to Siegel, the training teaches students"communication skills, neutrality and non-judgment, how to diffuse tense and angry situations, and how to brainstorm solutions."

Siegel acknowledged the DCMC is training more people than actually mediating disputes. But he said the DCMC formally mediated three disputes this past year, which is comparable to mediation programs at other colleges.

"Mediation is a concept that not everybody gets," he said. "A lot of people feel that if they can't resolve a problem themselves, then it can't be resolved."

"That's exactly when mediation is necessary," Siegel said. "A third party is brought in to start up a failed negotiation and seven times out of ten, a third party can help."

Hayley Spizz '96, a mediator from the DCMC, said she would like to see the center play a "much bigger" role on campus.

"There are lots of conflicts on campus and lots of places where we could work to make things better," Spizz said.

"A lot of people have a hang-up -- 'I don't need other people to solve my problems.' But with mediation, at least you're giving it a chance and exploring all possibilities," she said.

Siegel said the group is planning to start an advertising campaign to increase campus awareness about the center and administrators who have gone through the training, such as class deans, Women's Resource Center Director Giavanna Munafo and Programming Coordinator Linda Kennedy.

Members of the DCMC have also participated in conferences on conflict mediation in other communities. Last September, Spizz and Elissa Germaine '96 taught conflict resolution an all-girls school in Simsbury, Conn., as part of the Young Women's Invitational Leadership Conference.

Additionally, Undergraduate Advisors and Area Coordinators have been invited to participate in mediation training, Siegel said.So far this year one formal mediation has taken place in a College residence hall.

"This is the sort of thing we'd like to see happen," Siegel said."We have trained people to do mediation on the spot, without our intervention."