2015 CMM Learning Exchange Fellows

The following 5 fellows, including graduate students from Columbia University and other schools, as well as alumni of Columbia, participated in the 4th Annual CMM Learning Exchange in Munich, Germany, on September 17-20, 2015.

The 2015 CMM Learning Exchange was a co-production with the Institute for Global Integral Competence (www.ifgic.org) and with Fielding Graduate University’s EU Cluster. To learn more about the fellows and their experience at the LE read this interview.

Photo of April Bang

April Bang
Teachers College, Columbia University
EdD Candidate
Aesthetic Experience in Leadership Learning

April Bang is a doctoral student in the Adult Learning and Leadership program of the Organization and Leadership Department at Teachers College, Columbia University.  Prior to her doctoral studies, she has taught “Leadership: Becoming an Agent of Change” to undergraduate students at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea and has worked in various positions across the fields of social entrepreneurship, human rights, criminal justice reform, international rule of law development, economic policy, and finance.  Through the CMM Learning Exchange, she hopes to develop leadership and faculty development curriculum that fosters empathic capacities for more constructive engagement with conflict and incorporates CMM and aesthetic experiences in the facilitation of difficult dialogues around race, gender, and other issues of diversity.

Photo of Kelly Tenzek

Kelly Tenzek, Ph.D.
University of Buffalo
Clinical Assistant Professor
Transforming Conflict at End-of-Life: Critical Moments in Narratives for Creating Change

Dying has the potential to be a transformative process, but one must first engage in dialogue with others about the taboo topic of end-of-life (EOL).The current project focuses on interpersonal conflict in health care interactions. Multiple voices are involved in providing care at EOL. Questions related to whose needs are most important, become a focal point for conflict. By applying CMM to the EOL context, there is an opportunity for transformation in interpersonal relationships. This study begins to examine conflict experiences at EOL from multiple perspectives including family members, interdisciplinary team members, and patients. Preliminary results of qualitative analysis using CMM will be shared during the session including examples of socially constructed narratives at EOL, critical moments, and hierarchies of meaning in a world where biomedical and psychosocial-spiritual worlds collide.

Photo of Anne Ritter

Ann Ritter
Fielding Graduate University
PhD Candidate
Quaker experience of the divine and heuristic methodology

A native of the South Carolina Lowcountry, Ann Ritter has made her home in the Atlanta area for more than 35 years. She is a versatile performer, storyteller and business woman in addition to a published author of non-fiction, fiction and poetry. After a business career of some 25 years, Ann is pursuing her PhD in human and organizational systems at Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA. She also is on faculty at the Robinson College of Business at GA State University. She plans to resume a consulting practice in addition to teaching after graduation. To balance her work in the world, she teaches and practices Kundalini Yoga, and Integrative and Kundalini Yoga therapies in Decatur and Atlanta. A board member of Beacon Dance Company, Ann dances with Beacon, and regularly volunteers for CORE Dance and Synchronicity Theatre.

Photo of Aline Mugisho

Aline Mugisho
Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt
PhD Candidate
Women’s Protection and Social Resilience in Great Lakes Region of Africa

Aline Mugisho is a doctoral student at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt. She has a Master’s Degree in Migration and Displacement from the African Centre for Migration and Society, Wits University and a Bachelor in Journalism and Communication. Her doctoral research explores Protection through Social Resilience: An analysis of Women’s Strategies for Protection in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Her research interest includes: Public Policy; Politics of Reconstruction in Post-Conflicts; Research Methods in Conflict; Transitional Justice; Gender, Migration and Integration; Social Cohesion and Diaspora Dynamics. She has substantive work experience in Southern Africa and Great-Lakes Region of Africa especially in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Post-genocide Rwanda and Burundi where is is also conducting her doctoral research.

Photo of Meredith Smith

Meredith Smith, M.P.A. in Development Practice
Columbia University
Teenagers’ Empowerment at NYC’s Possibility Project

Meredith is a versatile educator and project manager with professional experience in the academic, NGO, multilateral, private and philanthropic sector, where work has focused on community development, education and youth empowerment programming. She completed her Master’s program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in Public Administration in Development Practice. She is currently working at the Earth Institute’s Advanced Consortium for Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4) on the grants and fellowships programs. Through the CMM Learning Exchange, she will explore the use of CMM as an evaluation tool and also as a theoretical framework to support the development of an arts-based program that engages at-risk youth in NYC through its use of performative arts and community action.