Students who have been intensely active this semester in peacemaking methodology expressed surprise at how little the Town Hall Forum turned out as they had anticipated. I'd like to address that here, especially so that our colleagues in Wisconsin, will have a chance to react to this.

Minutes and comments will give you the background from this face-to-face meeting at CSUDH. Here I would like to summarize the reactions, as I have heard them. I accept full responsibility for any misperceptions, and I invite you all to add your perceptions to this thread.

Keith Morris asked during the meeting itself, "Jeanne, is this what you wanted to happen?" Before I could think of a good answer, Keith had jumped back into the discussion. Joe Harris asked during the planning meeting, "What do you want me to do? How can I help?" Before I could think of a good answer, Joe, Jaime, and Michael were caught up in intense discussion. Jaime continued to offer the floor to Cliff, but before Cliff jumped into downsizing, he couldn't resist a comment to the earlier discussion thread, which led again to intense discussion.

I never really got to answer those questions, so I'll try now.

• Keith, all I expected of this meeting was discourse. It's hard for me to be more specific, because I don't think I've every really seen public discourse happen at a university. At least not in recent times. Discourse assumes good faith listening, and that assumes that we will help each other voice our validity claims. We have to do that because our objective is to "hear" each other. And since you raced back into the discussion, it seems that discourse was something we all needed to have.

  Some of you are trying to leap from first try at public discourse to a better world - you want to complete the discussion, come to a consensus, and move into action. You want a syllabus! But peacemaking doesn't come as a syllabus. These are not mutually exclusive linear steps. Peacemaking is a process, a self-reflexive process, an ongoing process, in which we must go back to discourse again and again, in which we will try for consensus again and again, in which we will take action and correct our course many, many times. This forum was one initial step. We actually listened to each other. We had a hard time doing it, but we did. Some of us (I recall Michael Planck specifically doing this. He helped Bernard explain his frustration with so much talk, so little action.) tried to help others express their frustration and their consequent validity claims. That is good faith, listening. And yes, Keith, that's a piece of what I wanted to happen, an important piece.

  . . .