By Jace Jaeden Ellis
Facilitating workshops, teaching undergraduate courses, mentoring students—Keith Regehr has contributed much to the Conrad Grebel University College community.
Keith began his association with Grebel in 2001, when he instructed a workshop on Transformative Mediation from the Conflict Management Certificate Program. Since then, Keith continued to share his rich and diverse knowledge through the instruction of several Conflict Management and custom request workshops in a variety of different areas such as racism, informal mediations skills for pastors, meeting facilitation, and others.
A few years later, Keith worked as an adjunct professor at Grebel, in addition to workshop facilitation. In this position, he taught a variety of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) courses including the foundation-setting course, PACS 202: Conflict Resolution, as well as PACS 313: Community Conflict Resolution and PACS 203: History of Peace Movements. Keith has mentored undergraduates and graduates who take these courses to help them reach their goals. Over the past two decades, Keith has instructed 39 courses and taught over 4000 students, many of whom offered him the feedback, “This course changed my life.”
Students and staff alike have found Keith both an enlightening and entertaining person, never lacking in the capacity for humor, and always ready to share his knowledge with enthusiasm. He cares about every student in his classes and is highly concerned about doing right by them.
“Thank you, Keith,” said Nathan Funk, Chair of the PACS Department, as Keith steps back from teaching at Grebel. He added:
We appreciate that you have certainly earned the right to walk away from the stadium, with its sometimes grueling term-long races, each involving many laps around the track. To take some time to wander, reflect, and explore. To revisit old passions that you didn’t always have time for while you were prepping for classes and trainings, or grading exams.