Celebrating a Decade of Impact at the 10th Conflict Resolution Youth Summit

On June 21st, the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University hosted a record 63 high school students from around the country for the annual Conflict Resolution Youth Summit (CRYS). This year, students attended CRYS from as far away as New York, San Francisco, and Amman, Jordan.

The program, now in its 10th year, introduces high school students to the field of conflict resolution and associated professional opportunities while teaching foundational skills, such as facilitation, active listening, and negotiation, which are rarely part of the high school curriculum. The students participated in introductory team building activities, fundamental skill building seminars, a movie screening and debrief, and a full-day trip to nearby Washington, D.C. 

Additionally, attendees were able to choose from a variety of faculty-led workshop offerings, including nonviolent activism, understanding globalization, and the importance of storytelling in a divided world to further tailor their experience to their interests.  

Carter School student Emory Lombino, a member of the CRYS program staff, found the mix of workshops to be engaging and informative, and appreciated the students’ enthusiasm to jump in and answer questions. “I really believe the sessions focused on teaching skills that were useful and engaging for the students, particularly the workshops on Youth Action and Nonviolent Resistance and ‘What Happens There Matters Here,’” Lombino said. 

At the conclusion of the four-day summit, students presented a synthesis project to their families during the closing ceremony, identifying a conflict in their school community. Their work drew on their new conflict analysis skills to identify underlying causes and to suggest possible interventions to real conflicts they have experienced in school. Topics presented on ranged from a lack of school spirit and inclusion, to the pressure of standardized testing culture.

Christina Gizzi, a Carter school undergraduate student who participated for the first time this year as program staff was grateful to have met so many wonderful students and was impressed with how caring, thoughtful, and smart the students in her group were. “My favorite moment was after the museum visits, when we were all sitting together at dinner,” she recalled. “The students adopted a wholeheartedness I never expected and were brave and comfortable just being themselves. They were passionate in their work on the synthesis projects and worked hard to create and present actionable solutions for their communities. I’m so happy to have been a part of the summit!” 

Their innovative solutions inspired and impressed many in the audience. Kristen Fegan, program director for CRYS, was particularly interested in the interventions for declining school spirit and student engagement. “[The students] decided to create a competition for attending school events, which felt like standard stuff—but then they suggested using a dynamic, algorithm-based system to assign point values to each school event based on its past popularity, gamifying participation and giving the student body a new reason to check-in each day for changing ranks and point values.” 

Fegan added, “The way they see their problems and the possible solution is totally different than how we think about it, and their perspective is critical for creating peace in a changing world.”

The summit left a lasting impression on all participants, who walked away with new skills and experiences. Kira, a 12th-grade student from Amman, Jordan, commented, “The summit was engaging and genuinely enjoyable, and everyone was super welcoming. [The program] also gave me a lot to think about when it comes to college and what I want to study. I left the summit with a few new ideas and a better sense of what I might want to go into."

The 11th summer of CRYS is tentatively planned for June 2027.