CADRE is pleased to announce Michelle LeBaron, internationally renowned scholar and practitioner, as recipient of the 2011 "Keys to Access" Award. Pictured at the presentation, which occured at CADRE's Fifth National Symposium are (left to right) Marshall Peter, Michelle LeBaron, Anita Engiles, and Symposium Chair, Philip Moses.
Michelle LeBaron is a tenured professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) law faculty and is Director of the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution. She joined the Faculty of Law in 2003 after twelve years teaching at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Women's Studies programs at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. From 1990-1993, she directed the Multiculturalism and Dispute Resolution Project at the University of Victoria.
Professor LeBaron is the author of Bridging Troubled Waters: Conflict Resolution from the Heart and Bridging Cultural Conflicts: A New Approach for a Changing World and co-author with Venashri Pillay of Conflict Across Cultures: A Unique Experience of Bridging Differences, the product of collaboration among five authors from four continents.
The focal points of Professor LeBaron’s academic research and scholarly writing converge in works whose titles link conflict and culture. She generously shares tools, approaches and her conviction that, in the diversity of culture and the energy of conflict, we can find the bridges that connect us across the differences of our lived experiences.
The focal point of Michelle’s life work is to effect positive change wherever and whenever she has an opportunity. Flowing through that work is an evolving appreciation for our human capacity to acquire fluency in culture and fluency in our approaches to conflict. She encourages us to reflect deeply on our own relationship with conflict and to engage our creativity in our encounters with differences arising from culture and conflict.
Professor LeBaron has lectured and consulted around the world on cross-cultural conflict resolution and has practiced as a family law and commercial mediator. She continues to pursue research into creativity, the arts and multiple ways of knowing as resources for bridging cultural differences.