ILR course readies students to mediate campus disputes

In an initiative between Cornell’s Office of the Judicial Administrator and the ILR School’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution, students will be able to take a joint ILR-Cornell Law School course that trains them to mediate disputes within the university starting this fall.

Campus Mediation Practicum: Theory and Practice, the first campus mediation program in the university’s history, will be co-taught by Rocco M. Scanza and Katrina Nobles. Scanza, a member of the ILR faculty since 1999 and the first executive director of the Scheinman Institute, teaches mediation and arbitration at ILR and the Law School. He also co-chairs the University Hearing Board. Nobles is the institute’s education and communications manager and is experienced in resolving interpersonal disputes through mediation.

Scanza said the course, which will be offered during fall and spring semesters, is unusual because few, if any, universities award credit to students who mediate campus conflicts.

“ILR, law and other Cornell students will have the opportunity to study and conduct real mediation cases,” he said.

Cases will be referred from the judicial administrator’s office, which annually handles 900 to 1,000 allegations of Code of Conduct violations, Scanza said.

“We believe ours is an innovative approach and of course increases the footprint of the ILR School and Scheinman Institute across the university," he said. "In effect, the institute is now part of the Cornell justice system. This is pretty historic stuff and we believe will help change the conflict culture of the university.”

A former national vice president for the American Arbitration Association, Scanza directs a mediation program for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He also serves as a professional mediator and arbitrator of employment, labor and commercial disputes.

He led a team that designed and implemented an employment mediation program for the U.S. Department of Labor and worked on a similar project for the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. He is working with the U.S. State Department and the Department of Energy to establish internal mediation capabilities.

Nobles, who holds an advanced degree in conflict resolution, is the university’s most experienced mediator of interpersonal conflicts. Before joining Cornell, she directed New Justice Mediation Services, the community dispute resolution center for Cortland County, New York.

Mary Catt is interim assistant dean for communications and marketing at the ILR School.

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