2025 California Retreat

COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee: The purpose of the IAM Communication & Outreach Committee is to effectively communicate IAM’s vision and accomplishments to IAM members, potential members, and consumers of commercial mediation through social media, blogging, and other media.

Co-Chairs: Jan Schau & Catherine Peulvé

Committee Members:

• Cliff Hendler
• Angela Reddock-Wright

Committee Goals:

• IAM Member Updates – Member Updates provide members with an opportunity to stay connected and informed about what is going on with other members, both personally and professionally.  Each year every member will be requested to complete a short update which will be posted in the Member Portal of the IAM Website.  Ideally, we would like to post Updates about once a week to introduce (or reintroduce) members to each other.  The IAM is grateful for the dedication of the Committee for the hours spent in reaching out to members to collect, review, and edit the Updates.  The committee is always looking for folks to help with these tasks.  It’s a great way to build relationships with your colleagues and give back to the IAM.  Send an email with your interest any committee member.
• Book Talks – Jeff Kichaven has organized a wonderful Zoom opportunity for members to discuss books they are reading, or have recently read, or would recommend.  If you are interested, contact Jeff Kichaven
• Mediator’s Reflections – Jan Schau has created a new Google Group: "IAM Mediators’ Reflections" where those who wish can continue to express themselves as we have with our IAM Happy Hours. The group will allow those who "opt in" to share poetry, observations, songs, prayers, musings, frustrations, fears, and triumphs.  It will give us a chance to express gratitude and brainstorm about ways we can "give back" or to help in meaningful ways.  If you’re interested, contact Jan Schau.

FINANCE COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee: To assist the Board in overseeing IAM’s financial affairs, ensuring sound financial planning, controls, and reporting. The Committee provides advice, review, and recommendations to the Board on budgets, investments, reserves, and financial risk, acts as liaison with external auditors or accountants, and ensures IAM’s financial practices align with good governance and fiduciary standards, and with relevant regulatory obligations. Terms of Reference

Chair: Tat Lim

Committee Members:

• Claude Amar
• Chuck Doran
• Antone Melton-Meaux
• Jan Schau
• Allan Stitt

CONFERENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee:  To plan meaningful conferences that challenge and educate the world’s most sophisticated mediators while providing a forum for the collegial exchange of ideas and fellowship.

Co-Chairs:  Barb Cornish & Prachi Mehta

Committee Members:

• Nathan Alder
• Orit Asnin

Goals:  The continued development of conferences that are relevant, interesting, and valuable to all IAM members, regardless of their jurisdiction.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee: The International Academy of Mediators recognizes that differences in perspectives, experiences, capabilities, and style are crucial to managing organizations and to providing mediation services in our diverse, complex and evolving global community. In this spirit, IAM is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in its membership structure and organizational work regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or veteran status.

Co-Chairs: James Mang'erere & Paul Monicatti

Names of Committee Members:

• Earlene Baggett-Hayes
• Afsana Gibson-Chowdhury
• Diego Faleck
• Cliff Hendler
• Michel Kallipetis
• Christianna Kyriacou Mantas
• Mary McLain
• Joyce Mitchell
• Andrea Morrison
• Beryl Ouma
• Steve Paul
• Marcelo Perlman
• Michelle Reinglass
• Gail Wright-Sirmans

Goals:

The mission of the newly launched International Academy of Mediators Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity is:

“…to recognize that difference in perspectives, capabilities, and style are crucial to managing organizations and to providing mediation services in our diverse,  complex, and evolving global. community. In this spirit, IAM is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in its membership, structure, and organizational work regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual. orientation,  gender identity, marital or veteran status.”

FINANCE COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee: To assist the Board in overseeing IAM’s financial affairs, ensuring sound financial planning, controls, and reporting. The Committee provides advice, review, and recommendations to the Board on budgets, investments, reserves, and financial risk, acts as liaison with external auditors or accountants, and ensures IAM’s financial practices align with good governance and fiduciary standards, and with relevant regulatory obligations. Terms of Reference

Chair: Tat Lim

Committee Members:

• Claude Amar
• Chuck Doran
• Antone Melton-Meaux
• Jan Schau
• Allan Stitt

MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee: Responsible for vetting prospective members who meet the qualifications established by the Board for joining the IAM, while also coordinating with the Executive Committee and the Board.

Chair: Robert Tessier

Committee Members:

• Lee Jay Berman
• Rebecca Clark
• Cliff Hendler
• Tat Lim
• Fernando Navarro
• Jody Sin

Goals:

• Prepare final recommendations to the Board for implementation of the Membership Task Force action items
• Staff and assist with the organization of the Recruiting and Member Services Committees
• Implement proactive recruiting, membership and member services protocols
• Maintain and improve collegiality, participation in IAM and quality of the membership
• Improve age, geographic, gender and cultural diversity of IAM

MEDIATOR MENTORSHIP PROGRAM (MMP) COMMITTEE

Purpose of Committee:  To identify and encourage appropriate candidates to apply for the IAM MMP program, to review and approve mentee applications, to monitor the progress of MMP members, and to assist in the development and oversight of programing tailored to IAM MMP members.

Co-Chairs: Wendy Kramer & Tagore Subramaniam

Committee Members:

• Claude Amar
• Stacie Hausner
• Alicia Kuin
• Robert Tessier

Committee Goals:

• Growth: To attract diverse qualified candidates for the creation of new IAM mentee/mentor teams and provide support for each mentee’s mediation practice development
• Web Presence: Create a separate listing of Mentor/Mentee teams on the IAM website.
• Programming: To continue to create innovative content for the MMP’s Wednesday Professional Development Webinars and continue to encourage MMP members’ and IAM members’ participation in IAM Conference attendance and webinars.
• Accountability:  Continue to assess yearly progress of each mentee through the Annual Questionnaire.

For more information and an application, please visit the Mentorship Program page.

SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE (SIR) PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Purpose: The purpose of the SIR Program is to help bridge the gap between the theory and practice of mediation. Interaction between the SIR and members can help practitioners learn more about prevailing theories and studies, while exposing academics to the environments and challenges facing professionals who make mediation their day-to-day business. The SIR program provides an opportunity to test current practice models while subjecting emerging academic theories to the pragmatic rigor of every-day practice.

Chair: Jennifer Egsgard

Committee Members:

• Rebecca Clark
• Allan Stitt

Current SIR: Professor Sarah Cole

Scholars-in-Residence Selected Works

Professor Hal Abramson (2014 – 2016):

Hal Abramson, Bennett Picker, Bill Marsh, Birgit Sambeth Glasner, and Jerry Weiss: "Are Legal Disputes Just About the Money? Answers from Mediators on the Front Line”, Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017

Professors Dwight Golann and Lela Love (2017 - 2020):

Dwight Golan: “How Mediators Evaluate, Through Words, Participants’ Gestures and Sometimes Silence”, Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Vol. 38, No. 10, Nov. 2020

Dwight Golan: “I Sometimes Catch Myself Looking Angry or Tired…”: The Impact of Mediating by Zoom, Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Vol. 3, No. 5, May 2021

Lela Love, Eric Galton, and Jerry Weiss: “The Decline of Dialogue: The Rise of Caucus-Only Mediation and the Decline of the Joint Session”, The Newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, Volume 39, No. 6, June 2021

Professors Doug Frenkel and Jim Stark (2021 – 2024)

Douglas Frenkel and James Stark's upcoming revision of  "The Practice of Mediation: A Video-Integrated Text" (4th Edition, anticipated publication date, February 2025) contains new chapters, “ Preparing for and Conducting Remote Mediations”, and “Pre-Mediation Conferencing”, which benefited greatly from IAM members' input during the IAM SIR webinars the authors conducted, IAM survey responses, and IAM members' service as mediators in video recorded for the new edition.

Goals: This description provides illustrations of the sorts of activities the SIR might engage in. The opportunities can be expanded as the SIR program develops and evolves under the oversight of the SIR Committee.

Contribute to IAM Conferences: The SIR can assist in designing workshops for IAM Conferences. Workshops might include programs based on the expertise that the person brings to the position or hosting an academic speaker on a subject that might be of interest to the membership. Annual IAM conferences have historically been cutting edge, with top tier presenters and panelists.

Contribute to the IAM’s ListServ Discussion Group: The SIR can participate in the IAM confidential Listserv by posing questions of theory, ethics, and strategy and commenting on threads. The threads provide a lively exchange of ideas. However, no member content may be distributed or republished by the SIR without express permission.

Engage in Scholarship that Draws on the Expertise of the Membership: The SIR can prepare an article or other work that will be informed by discussions or collaboration with members of IAM.The SIR also is available to help members prepare articles and speeches by serving as a sounding board and offering advice on the timeliness of topics and options for publishing. The mutual enrichment of such a dialogue is an intangible, but significant benefit.

STRATEGY COMMITTEE

Purpose: The IAM Strategy Committee is tasked with reviewing the medium- to long-term aims and goals of the IAM. It will consider what the IAM should be seeking to achieve in a 3–5-year timescale and make recommendations to the Board as to how such aims and goals might be achieved.

Chair: Todd Smith

Committee Members:

• Claude Amar
• Orit Asnin
• Lee Jay Berman
• Nina Khouri
• Jonathan Lloyd-Jones
• James Mang'erere
• Jan Schau
• Allan Stitt