An examination of the development and maintenance of intercultural conflict mediation and resolution programs on university campuses in the United States

Many colleges and universities throughout the United States have a long history of encouraging and maintaining a diverse community of international students and scholars on their campuses. As a result of the interaction within this great mix of cultures, interpersonal conflict of an intercultural nature has understandably developed. To cope with the conflicts between cultures, many institutions have developed intercultural mediation programs and resources. This research examines what some U.S. universities do to respond to the issue of international student and scholar intercultural conflict mediation and resolution. The study was designed to explore the different types of resources and services that have been developed and to study some of them in greater detail to gain a better understanding of their approaches and resulting issues and successes. The overall objective of this research was to learn how the various ways mediation programs offered at the selected universities work in practice. The literature review was created to gain an overall understanding of conflict styles and conflict resolution approaches that are relevant to the many cultural groups who are in need of the mediation. My data collection process focused on how colleges and universities incorporate mediation programs into the campus at large. Data was gathered through 12 interviews with administrators who have experience working in the intercultural conflict mediation and resolution area; these programs were at the Universities of Washington and Minnesota, and Nevada, Reno and Michigan. From the interviews and the literature review, an annotated bibliography and guidelines were created to provide insights and recommendations for consideration by intercultural conflict mediation and resolution programs at educational institutions throughout the United States