Our presenters are curated for their quality, depth, integrity, and alignment with our educational purpose. Since 1982, a distinguished faculty of authors, educators, activists, artists, performers, and practitioners have shared their work at our Cortes Island campus and in Vancouver.
Michelle LeBaron
Michelle LeBaron is an internationally-recognized conflict engagement specialist whose work is animated by creativity, culture and interdisciplinarity. A tenured professor of law, she has done seminal work in many types of conflict engagement including intercultural, international, family, organizational and commercial.
Michelle’s current research focuses on dialogic approaches to political and religious conflict, and on how creative approaches help shift intractable conflicts. She is also collaborating with scholars from the global south on issues of transitional justice, symbolic reparations and commemorations of collective traumas.
Michelle has been a fellow at the Trinity College Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute in Dublin, holds a Wallenberg Fellowship at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa and taught at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Her books include Changing Our Worlds: Art as Transformative Practice; The Choreography of Resolution: Conflict, Movement and Neuroscience; Conflict Across Cultures: A New Approach for a Changing World; Bridging Cultural Conflicts; and Bridging Troubled Waters.