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Marie Schell ’07

School violence reduction program led by 2007 alumna

Marie Schell ’07 is leading Maryland’s new Statewide Youth Conflict Coaching Pilot Program as project director and executive director of the Conflict Resolution Center of Baltimore County

The two-year school violence reduction program launched this year to serve more than 400 at-risk middle and high school students over a two-year period. The pilot is supported by $291,000 in congressional funding. 

Available twice monthly at participating schools, the conflict coaching sessions equip students with tools to manage conflicts productively and boost self-esteem and social skills. 

Schell credits her ILR education with preparing her to lead the non-profit conflict resolution center, which serves all persons and organizations in Baltimore County at no cost to them. Since it began in 2009, the center has served over 8,000 youth and 16,000 family members, victims, school administrators and others.

“I took ‘Managing & Resolving Conflict’ with Professor Lipsky. His class cemented my interest in studying interpersonal conflict and drove me to pursue a master’s in conflict resolution from Georgetown, where I studied linguistics and mediation processes to better understand where personal/private conversations go awry.” 

Another ILR experience that helped drive her toward a career in conflict resolution was a credit internship at the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. 

“That ILR/ILO relationship was developed through Professor Kuruvilla, who also taught a virtual class for ILR students there each semester. Without Professor Kuruvilla’s commitment to maintaining that relationship, I would not have had the experience of interning in the ILO’s HR Classifications Unit, whose mandate was to review employee requests for promotions. That experience helped me appreciate the power employers have over individuals, and the constraints even management can feel working in such large systems.” 

Senior Lecturer Ron Applegate was Schell’s adviser for her independent research during the credit internship. “I took U.S. labor history – both 19th and 20th centuries – from him. I learned a lot from him and his classes about employee rights.”

One of Schell’s favorite ILR classes was “Values in Law, Economics, & Industrial Relations” with Professor James Gross. “I appreciated the debates his readings generated, and his thought experiment asking what would you do if your employer posed a harmful ultimatum to you still makes me bristle! Understanding an employer’s power and role in employees’ health and safety was eye-opening, and I brought that lesson with me while leading through COVID.” 

“Overall, ILR informed me about my rights as an employee as much as it did about my obligations as an employer.”

“I lead as an employee first, constantly reflecting on what I would want from my manager as I work with our staff to build an organization that serves our employees as well as it serves our clients.”

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