Since the inception of the Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) department, few students have taken as many courses as Kelly Brown (BA 2012, MPACS 2014). She is an alumnus of the MPACS program, majored is PACS as an undergraduate student, and attained the Conflict Management and Mediation Certificate. She has since gone on to work in mediation as well as teaching both at the University of Waterloo and beyond.
Kelly graduated high school with an interest in international development and civil work. She was drawn to the PACS program because it allowed for a wide variety of options, going beyond solely international development. Coming out of her undergraduate degree, Kelly knew she wanted to pursue further education. “I wanted to drill down into what I wanted to do specifically, and I thought MPACS would allow me to do that,” she said.
After being admitted into the master's program in PACS, she was able to complete this goal and find her specialty. “There’s a very strong theoretical framework in your first year of study. And then there’s a ‘choose your own adventure’ aspect,” she noted. For Kelly, this meant focusing on conflict management and mediation.
After graduating, Kelly worked for the PACS department as a graduate coordinator but has since moved on to work directly in the field as a workplace mediator. In this position, she talks to people in many workplaces, either assessing the environment or mediating specific conflicts. “We spend almost a third of our lives at work and only about 40 percent of people say they’re happy with their roles. So how can we improve that?” Kelly asked.
But she didn’t always think that this was going to be her career. “When I got into the PACS program, as a 16-year-old and just coming back from Kenya, I wasn’t thinking of doing this. As I moved through the program, though, I wanted to be of service locally and improve people’s day-to-day lives,” she reflected. Kelly also teaches PACS 202/LS 271 – Conflict Resolution as well as the Dispute Resolution workshop. The former is an undergraduate course that often has a breadth of different majors. It’s an introduction to conflict resolution and management, which focuses on personal skill development in productive conversations. On the other hand, the Dispute Resolution workshop is aimed at professionals looking for continued education, although it is open to MPACS students for credit. It is centred around mediation and becoming comfortable with conflict situations as sources of productivity rather than stress.
Outside of work, Kelly has been impacted by Grebel on a personal level, notably, the positive and productive way that problems in the world are tackled through the PACS and MPACS program.
As someone who has been through not only the entire MPACS program, but also the PACS program and conflict management certifications, Kelly offered valuable insight on how to approach the programs. “I think a huge part of university in general is not only learning skills for the workplace but also developing skills that are going to serve you in your personal life. A job is just one part of your life, right?”
Kelly’s journey displays the gold standard of PACS and MPACS education – one in which students can learn and broaden their horizons, leaving the program with a new perspective on the world that they did not have before.