When conflicts arise, who ya gonna call?

MEDIATION: Dale Hall is chair of the steering committee that is directing the new mediation service pilot project at York.

by Mary Ann Horgan

YORK LAUNCHES COORDINATED MEDIATION SERVICE

Your residence roommate likes to listen to Led Zeppelin while he's studying, and you need absolute silence.

Your co-worker makes derogatory remarks about you constantly.

You and another manager are supposed to share the workload of your division, but you don't think she's carrying her weight.

These are all potential conflicts that could take place at York University.

Who ya gonna call?

Call the new Mediation Service at York. The University is officially launching a new service that helps people to resolve conflicts in a fast, confidential way ­ ideally before they mushroom into huge problems.

For the first time, York is offering a coordinated, central service to assist members of the university community in resolving conflict through mediation. Mediate @York is a two-year pilot project available to the York community free of charge, and the service runs from Oct. 1, 1998, to Sept. 30, 2000. This initiative stems from the May 1998 recommendation of the President's Advisory Committee on Human Rights at York, said Dale Hall, chair of the steering committee that is directing the new project.

Everyone at York can use the service, but unionized employees who are experiencing workplace conflicts should consult their collective agreement and their union first. For personal problems, unionized employees may use the mediation service, but for workplace conflicts, they should still use their collective agreement and approach their union first, Hall said.

"We believe that many of the conflicts that come up can be resolved at the most basic and confidential level with the help of mediation," said Hall. "Many people are hesitant to launch a formal complaint, because it may take a long time and involve various people. With a mediator, on the other hand, we'll try to respond to your call within 24 hours, and the service is totally confidential. If mediation is agreed to, we will try to set it up as soon as possible.

"We want to create a more peace-oriented environment at York so that people feel there is a place they can go to resolve issues informally," said Hall. "The formal complaint process can be very adversarial, and the whole point of mediation is to get around those adversarial positions you may find yourself in through a formal complaint procedure." However, she added that not all conflicts can be resolved through mediation. Some conflicts still require a formalized means of resolution.

"With mediation, people are empowered to work out the problem and develop solutions together," said Hall. "People can call us and, if they wish, a third party could sit down with the two of them and work out an agreement."

In residence, conflicts can normally be resolved by the Don or Residence Tutor, Hall said, "But sometimes that may not have worked, for whatever reason. It may be that the parties don't want someone they know to mediate the situation."

"We want people to know that conflicts don't have to be suffered alone," said Hall. "We have people who can help, and this is a confidential way to get help. No-one besides the two parties and the mediator needs to know about it. We are offering a service at York that doesn't involve a lot of other people. We think this service will go a long way towards addressing that."

Mediation allows an impartial third party to provide whatever help is required in a situation. In order to be effective, though, mediation must be an option that has been freely chosen by all participants, Hall said.

"We can mediate between two people, or we can mediate between groups. We have had student clubs with different philosophical viewpoints coming into conflict with each other, and these situations can sometimes require a mediator. With mediation, issues can sometimes be settled with a verbal agreement, and others may have a written agreement. It's up to the parties involved, and we're very flexible in our approach."

Although this is the first time a centralized mediation service has been offered at York, mediation has actually been happening at the University for 10 years, according to Hall. "Mediation is not new to the University," she said. "It has been used successfully in human rights-related areas, employee groups and the Office of Student Affairs for the past 10 years."

"The idea for this coordinated service came from the fact that there were many of us around the York community who knew that mediation was being used at York for a long time, but it was never a coordinated service. If the situation arose, we knew people who could mediate."

The service has a pool of about 25 mediators available. "We have a lot of expertise in mediation at York, including students, faculty and staff. A component of our pool includes certified mediators, as well as others who through their work have to deal with all kinds of difficult situations. We will provide training for all of these people in different aspects of mediation. When a conflict comes up, our service will try its very best to find the most appropriate mediator for the situation."

Other universities in Canada and the United States have coordinated mediation services. Carleton University has a large mediation service that has been running for a number of years, Hall said, while other schools use peer mediation programs.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding about what mediation is and is not," said Hall. "So people can feel free to call or email us to ask questions before they make decisions."

The mediation service will not have its own office, but will operate out of the university complaints centre area at 108 Central Square. Danny Spitale, who is responsible for research and special projects in the Office of Student Affairs, will serve as the intake advisor who retrieves messages initially. The intake advisor will return the calls or email messages to discuss the possibility of mediation. If the intake advisor feels the dispute or conflict is one which the service could mediate, he will proceed to set up mediation on behalf of the party involved. People may call (416) 650-8147 or (416) 736-2100, ext. 58147. Or you can send email questions to: mediate@yorku.ca.

A grand opening reception for the new Mediate@York service will be held tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 29) in the Faculty Club from 3:30 to 5 p.m. York University President Lorna Marsden will be on hand to officially launch the service.