New Service at UCSD Helps Students Patch Rifts Peace by Peace

She was angry at him, he was angry at her. The relationship had degenerated to the point that, no matter what they tried, the anger wouldn’t go away.

Before too long, they knew a counselor was not only advisable but mandatory. Instead of going to a psychologist or a marriage-and-family therapist, the two UC San Diego students went to a new mediation center on campus.

In two sessions, each lasting more than 2 1/2 hours, the differences were resolved, at least for the time being.

Loud Music to Loud Dogs

UCSD Student Mediation Services opened in April, with the start of the spring quarter. It is manned by 15 student volunteers and five faculty members who attempt to mediate differences between clashing roommates, warring couples or insult-hurling neighbors. Items of contention include everything from loud stereos to howling dogs to domestic ennui.

The service is free and attempts to mediate differences rather than settle them the way the legal system would, in an adversarial format. A prime mover and shaker behind the service is Tom Walsh, a resident adviser at Muir College and an undergraduate student at UCSD.

Walsh thought a mediation program might help resolve roommates’ growing clashes, which he called a chronic problem.

In talking with Carrie Wilson from UCSD Legal Services--an adviser to the student program--Walsh realized Wilson’s agency has limitations. It can handle complaints between a student and the university, or between a student and a landlord, but does nothing to resolve student-vs.-student complaints. It isn’t authorized to do so.

Since its opening, UCSD Student Mediation Services has gotten in the middle of no fewer than 15 squabbles, some of which haven’t been resolved. Walsh said they involve roommates fist-fighting, controversies over stereos, clashing life styles, invasions of privacy or conflicts over study time.

He said a lot of the problems come about because UCSD is a highly competitive academic environment, which draws many students from foreign countries or from radically different cultures.

A sizable Chinese population exists at UCSD, and Susan Quinn, an attorney and adviser to the program, called mediation more reassuring to these students, if only because it is the method their country uses.

“The beauty of mediation is that there is no right or wrong,” Quinn said. “You simply get an agreement.”

Like many in her profession, Quinn is increasingly troubled about the pitfalls of adversarial law. If anything, it encourages a kind of pit-bull approach to settling disputes, scores of which could, in her view, be resolved before reaching the courtroom.

Quinn said divorce is one area in which the mediation process has excelled and dramatically outshone the adversarial route. Instead of a couple widening their differences, especially with children involved, they can somehow explore a common ground. She said mediation has since been extended to other venues--such as those being traveled at UCSD--with results not only worthwhile but creative and fresh.

Barbara Filner is a trainer and developer with the Community Mediation Program, an outgrowth of the University of San Diego Law School and the “parent” of UCSD’s pioneer program. Filner said her program has been doing in the community what UCSD is now hoping to do exclusively with students.

Since December, Filner has given UCSD students more than 27 hours of training, staging mock mediations as a way of mastering the method. She said her agency has an 86% compliance rate.

“Mediation works beyond a specific dispute,” Filner said. “It allows people to learn skills dealing with conflict and confrontation that go way beyond the exigencies of normal life. It works because it appeals to the best in people, and not the worst.”

Filner got interested in mediation after using it in her divorce.

“It gives you a chance to focus on what really matters, such as children, rather than trying to scratch back at each other for the hurt,” she said. “Whenever there’s a problem or conflict, it can’t be the fault of only one party. Two were involved in causing it. Mediation fosters mutual respect all the way through.

“In mediation, you deal with feelings rather than facts. In court, you often deal only with facts, with feelings virtually ignored, at best denied. Once you start dealing with feeling and quit covering up, you tend to get to the heart of the matter. The real goal is enhanced understanding.”

One of the benefits of UCSD’s program, in Filner’s view, is the eagerness to confront boyfriend-girlfriend problems. Unmarried couples often have no place to go when differences erupt. The court won’t welcome them; even some therapists are reluctant to treat them.

“The feelings of anger, betrayal and jealousy are often just as real for them as they are for married couples,” Filner said. “Finding a place to resolve them, though, is very difficult.”

Foes Often Become Friends

Quinn, the advisory attorney, said mediation often brings better-than-expected dividends: Warring parties can end up friends. She knows of neighbors, locked in bitter disputes over dogs that won’t stop barking, who emerge as friends and then laugh forever about the strange circumstances that brought them together.

Brian Smith, one of the 15 student volunteers, said such a situation is shaping up between the couple that would not stop fighting. He was angry at her over a job that didn’t pay much money; she was angry at him over exerting too much control, being tight with the money--some of which was hers.

“The problem was communication,” Smith said. “And, they were very volatile people. She came from an upper-middle-class background where things were pretty much taken care of. He had been more independent, not used to worrying about things, not used to sharing decisions. The fact that they never talked about backgrounds or differences lay at the root of most of the problems.”

Having talked those out, the couple left--not with the understanding that love was perfect, but that, if they somehow stumbled one step back, they at least had a chance, in Smith’s words, of talking their way two steps forward.