“We have a responsibility, in their formation as people for and with others, to provide them with tangible experiences in the spirit of solidarity.”
Dr. Julia Wade has worked in student affairs in various capacities for 13 years. She currently serves as the director for generative dialogue and restorative practices. Her research and practice interests include restorative culture building and implementation of restorative practices in higher education settings, evaluation of implementation efforts in addition to restorative justice responses to student sexual misconduct.
Several years ago, I was reminded that I was trained as a Peer Mediator at Will Rogers Elementary School in Santa Monica when I was in 5th grade. My memory was jogged by a printed photo my mom had dug up, as she often does, of myself and the rest of the group of Peer Mediators.
I don’t have many memories of my time as a Peer Mediator, save for a couple things. It was an opt-in program, so I wanted to do it. I also recall that I had to be recommended for participation, so someone else must have thought I would be good at it as well. And finally, I have a single memory of trying to actually engage in the peer mediating I had been trained to do.
I still remember sitting in between two of my peers and feeling utterly challenged. There was dialogue happening, but it seemed like we were not getting far before a new issue came up. I was in the hot seat, and I’m sure the flush of confusion was present on my face. What do I say next? Am I being helpful? Are they more upset now than when we started? Nonetheless, I am thankful that my school took the risk at the time to allow students to try to help other students work through their issues.
Flash forward 25 years, and it is still very apparent to me that people need help—especially now, in polarized times—talking to one another. As a university, and particularly in the Division of Student Affairs, we have made significant contributions in helping our students do so. From longstanding programs such as the Intercultural Facilitators to newer education and initiatives around dialogue and practicing controversy with civility through LMU CARES and the Ignatian Leadership Institute, we have been and are doing a lot.
But as a former staff member in student conduct, the reports that we received on a daily basis led me to believe that we could do more—and that we needed to try something different.
In the summer of 2018, our team started exploring restorative justice (RJ). The framework of RJ emphasizes the repairing of harm caused by one’s behavior. David Karp writes that a restorative university “is one that provides both support and accountability for all of its community members, a place for learning and working that lives up to its practical and lofty educational mission.”
RJ is being used on college campuses as a community-building and conduct tool that facilitates dialogue, provides the opportunity for students to understand their actions, take responsibility for their behavior, and repair damage potentially done to the campus community. Essentially, RJ asks three simple questions: What happened? Who has been affected? What can be done to repair the harm?
My research into RJ led me to having conversations with colleagues from UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego to University of Colorado Boulder and our fellow Jesuit, Loyola University Chicago. Thankfully, in 2019, we discovered that we had an expert on RJ in our backyard and, through a partnership with the Center for Urban Resilience at LMU, a new iteration of restorative justice was born at LMU.
As Susan Sharpe wrote in her essay outlining the alignment between RJ and Catholic Social Teaching, “Overall, restorative justice responds to harm in a spirit of solidarity—that is, by ‘seeing others not as rivals or statistics, but brothers and sisters.’” She quotes one of Pope Francis’s addresses here. She goes on to say, “Restorative justice sees people not as powerless, in need of higher authorities to accomplish justice for them, but rather as people to be supported in the work of recovering their safety, reclaiming their dignity, and renewing their place as whole and responsible members of the community.”
This “spirit of solidarity” has been my compass as a facilitator and in the partnerships I work to coordinate across campus to support our implementation. I dream big that we may one day truly be a “restorative university.”
We have a duty to train our students, to support them in developing skills and knowledge such that they are career ready. We also have a responsibility, in their formation as people for and with others, to provide them with tangible experiences in “the spirit of solidarity.” I thus see our RJ work as belonging to, according to Karp’s framing, both the practical and the lofty.
References
Karp, David R. PhD, "Becoming a Restorative University" (2023). School of Leadership and Education Sciences: Faculty Scholarship. 41. https://digital.sandiego.edu/soles-faculty/41
Sharpe, S. (2018). Restorative justice and Catholic Social Tradition: A Natural Alignment. Restorative Justice Network of Catholic Campuses. University of San Diego Center for Restorative Justice. March.