Here is my summary of Nancy Welsh’s (Texas A&M) opening remarks.

After a historical overview of mediation from biblical times to the founding of the modern mediation movement, she offered several questions illustrating the diversity of mediation.  What does mediation look like – how is it structured, who are the mediators, where do they take place, what do mediators do?  An important question she’s been hearing and thinking about it – is mediation so diverse that we really can’t describe mediation?  She compared it to the words parent, teacher, boss.  Those are diverse and we have good ideas of what those things are.

When first introduced to mediation, Welsh was enthralled.  Many people found the The law was a dead-end for people and mediation gave them the opportunity to speak with each other.  We have self-determination, a part of who we are as Americans, and we are a creative people.  Then she found there was so much focus on evaluation of legal claims, and that parties simply wanted veto options on proposals.  Maybe the favoritism for mediation is/was about procedural due process – people can contribute and feel heard – but do we just give lip service to that?  Is procedural justice  enough.  Do we simply give lip service to it?  But we know that sometimes people don’t talk because they are afraid that it will come back and bite them.  Can we count on mediation as a procedurally just process?   Maybe it’s just the simple nobility of bringing a conflict to an end.  But there are a lot of other processes out there, what is it that makes mediation unique?

This symposium’s title and the picture associated with it capture her feelings very well.