Interpersonal relationships play a large role in university life and life in general. While some relationships are relatively uneventful, others can generate a lot of stress and anxiety. Others may even escalate to levels of hostility and antagonism. Portland State students who find themselves in difficult positions with friends or fellow peers may want to seek assistance—but where do they go?
Interpersonal relationships play a large role in university life and life in general. While some relationships are relatively uneventful, others can generate a lot of stress and anxiety. Others may even escalate to levels of hostility and antagonism. Portland State students who find themselves in difficult positions with friends or fellow peers may want to seek assistance—but where do they go?
This is where the Student Center for Dispute Resolution can help. A student-run organization, SCDR provides free mediation services and conflict resolution training at PSU. Operated by graduate students in PSU’s Conflict Resolution program, SCDR was devised as a way for them to practice the skills they learned in the classroom while, at same time, providing a service to the student community.
SCDR, according to Erica Bestpitch, one of the center’s four student coordinators, is there to help students deal with interpersonal problems. This can mean teaching effective communication skills, how to better understand one’s own role in a given conflict situation or how to manage stress.
Six years ago, when SCDR was originally organized, it was set up primarily to handle peer mediations for PSU students experiencing interpersonal conflict. In recent years, the center has branched out to meet the demand for skills and expertise that exist outside of the PSU campus. The bulk of SCDR’s work these days is in conducting conflict resolution training for groups at PSU and around the city.
At the beginning of the current academic year, SCDR organized a conflict resolution training seminar for the university’s resident assistants. Katie Osborne, a sophomore interested in pursuing child and family studies, is one RA in Ondine Residence Hall who attended the training seminar in September.
Osborne said that her experience at the training has been very useful to her as an RA, but also pertains to more than just her RA responsibilities. The training, as she remembers it, mostly pertained to developing effective communications skills. “In resident life,” Osborne said, “it’s hard to know how much you can help.” She added that the training boosted her confidence and provided her with a better understanding of the tools available to her and her fellow residents.
Since September, Osborne has referred only a couple of students to SCDR. But it has been helpful, she said, knowing that SCDR is there for instances where a conflict between residents is beyond her own ability to help.
Outside of PSU, a variety of other organizations like Job Corps and the Center for Intercultural Organizing make use of SCDR’s conflict resolution training. Job Corps helps young people get an education and develop career skills, and the CIO is a grassroots organization working to improve and protect immigrant and refugee rights.
Each training seminar is tailored to the group receiving it. The opportunity to design and lead training with different kinds of groups gives the students at SCDR a valuable opportunity to develop versatile teaching skills and learn productive teaching methods. “Our experience working with the community,” Bestpitch later commented in an email, “is also our place to learn what teaching means and how to do it effectively in order to become more competent in our work and in the conflict resolution field.”
Bestpitch, who graduates this spring, is in her second and final year of the conflict resolution program at PSU. Bestpitch came to PSU’s CR master’s program with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. She said she wants to use her education in conflict resolution to help people better understand themselves and improve their relationships with each other.
The CR program takes two years to complete and SCDR’s staff is made up primarily of second-year grad students—the combination of which means that frequent turnover can present a challenge for the group in terms of continuity.
Stan Sitnick, the center’s faculty advisor, said that it is SCDR’s student leaders that determine which projects the group undertakes. The student coordinators are responsible for outreach and developing community partnerships. Sitnick said that transitions from year to year contribute to the center’s flexibility. He noted that, in spite of the turnover rate, “the main functions of the group are stable.”
Sitnick said that he is excited about this year’s SCDR team. “We have a very active and enthusiastic core group with a strong secondary group that are putting a lot of time into their work.”
According to Bestpitch, SCDR is interested in continuing the work it finds itself doing today. She hopes that in the future more students will come to know the center as a resource for interpersonal conflict mediation.
“Right now, as I see it,” Bestpitch said, “the big shift needs to happen in terms of our visibility on campus.” In order for students to utilize SCDR as a resource, she added, people need to know that it is there and available to them.
SCDR’s mediators are professionally trained, meaning that all have satisfied a minimum requirement of 40 hours of training as a co-mediator. The center also provides individual conflict resolution coaching and facilitation services free to PSU students. Students seeking their services are encouraged to call 503-725-7237. More information can be found at www.scdr.pdx.edu.
