Introduction: Honoring the Contributions of Christina Merchant to the Field of Conflict Resolution

• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21152
• Date: 01 December 2015

C R Q, vol. 33, supplement 1, Winter 2015 S1

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21152

GUEST EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

Introduction: Honoring theContributions of

Christina Merchant to the Field of Con ict

Resolution

Rosemary O’Leary

Catherine Gerard

The fi eld of confl ict resolution lost a giant with the passing of Christina

Merchant (“Chris”) two years ago.  is special issue of Confl ict

Resolution Quarterly seeks to honor Chris’s contributions, examining how

her work infl uenced our thinking, while furthering thought and knowl-

edge in the subareas of the fi eld to which Chris contributed so deeply.

We both had the pleasure of working with Chris at the Maxwell School

of Syracuse University, in training sessions for government agencies and

in the classroom teaching confl ict resolution and collaboration to public

administration students. Chris was a seasoned mediator with decades of

experience by the time we met her—funny and irreverent, wise and sassy,

insightful and hard-working, kind and caring. Formerly president of the

Association of Confl ict Resolution (ACR; previously Society of Profession-

als in Dispute Resolution) and advisor to the Clinton administration for

labor-management partnerships, Chris was coauthor of a classic in the fi eld

of confl ict resolution, Designing Confl ict Management Systems: A Guide to

Creating Productive and Healthy Organizations, with Cathy Costantino

(Costantino and Merchant 1988).

While at the Maxwell School, Christina maintained her interests

and activities in multiple areas. She served as a mediator for statewide

We thank the Syracuse University Maxwell School Program for the Advancement of Research

on Confl ict and Collaboration for funding that made this special issue possible.