Interactions with Stakeholders: Conflict Management
Date: Wednesday, September 9
Time: 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Place: WEB L102
There will be light refreshments afterwards.
Please plan on attending this seminar. It could really impact your research. Dr. Michele Straube is the Director of the
Environmental Dispute Resolution Program, in the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Abstract:
Energy issues can be controversial. People approach energy/research development issues with different value sets and commonly have strong opinions on what should and should not be done. Further, energy decisions can have a highly politicized context. There are some important processes that you should incorporate in interacting with stakeholders in order to manage/mitigate conflicts. These include effective communication, appropriate interpersonal dynamics, acknowledging and working with disparate stakeholder interests, and managing/mitigating/avoiding conflict. The opportunity is to use the “energy” of conflict to solve problems.
Biography:
Since February 2012, Professor Michelle Straube has been the Director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program at the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law. She is a founding Director of the program at Wallace Stegner Center that promotes collaboration, mediation, and other dispute resolution processes as a means to address contemporary environmental and natural resource conflicts, particularly in Utah and the Mountain West. For 20 years she has been a mediator/facilitator at CommUnity Resolution, Inc., providing mediation and facilitation, conflict management training, participatory process design and conflict coaching. In addition, Prof. Straube has lectured, practiced law and advocated in Pennsylvania, Alaska, and Washington DC. She received a BA from Rice University in 1974 and a JD from Franklin Pierce Law Center, University of New Hampshire in 1979.