 May 2001 |
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Rice Grant Funds ICAR Conference Center DirectorshipA million-dollar grant from the Rice Family Foundation marks an important step toward the International Conference and Retreat Center planned by the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR). The four-year foundation grant will enable ICAR to create and endow the Henry Hart Rice Chair for Conflict Resolution, which will be held by the director of the planned center. This grant to ICAR is the first from the Rice Family Foundation to George Mason University. The late Henry Hart Rice, a New York real estate broker, was skilled in bringing people together to help them negotiate their differences. In the 1960s, he became interested in international issues and through his philanthropy sought to promote understanding and improve difficult relationships. In the future, part of ICAR's work will take place at the International Conference and Retreat Center. The center will provide a place for retreats and research, as well as meetings between parties in conflict to work out racial, religious, gender, political, or other divisive issues. Last year, Edwin and Helen Lynch, long-time benefactors of the university, donated their 39-acre Mason Neck property Point of View to serve as the center's location. The quiet, bucolic--yet accessible--site is anticipated to become a central location for international as well as national and local conflict resolution. With that in mind, early plans include a number of small cottages--multi-use buildings that can house visiting scholars or serve as classrooms or meeting spaces--in a high-tech environment that will allow distance learning and participation. Also planned are an auditorium, libraries, food facilities, and meeting rooms. "We will make the site accessible to other parts of the university," says Dr. Sandra Cheldelin, director of ICAR. "We hope the business community might also want to use it, as well as state and federal agencies. Plans call for state-of-the-art communications equipment wired to the rest of the world, which will enable us to bring people into conferences without physically having them there. The overall vision, however, is for a low-profile, quiet place." The center's new director will not be low profile, according to Cheldelin. ICAR will seek a well-known practitioner in the field of conflict resolution, so he or she will bring that experience to this position. The director's responsibilities will include developing the programs that will take place at the center and working with organizations locally, nationally, and internationally. But the candidate would not be associated with a particular political view. "To do our work, we can't be partisan. To identify with people clearly from one party or another could detract from our neutrality," said Cheldelin. While the reality of the conference center is some time in the future, ICAR has begun raising funds to build it. The center director will likely be hired in time to participate in the development of the conference center and its programs. |