The Robert E. Strippel Memorial Fund for Continuing Dialogue on Justice and Human Rights

The Continuing Dialogue on Justice and Human Rights is an annual program devoted to the discussion and debate of local, regional, national, and global human rights issues and concerns coordinated and supported by the Robert E. Strippel Memorial Fund.

A Social Justice Leadership Approach

Social Justice Leadership is a continuous process of critical self reflection and action. It relies on diverse perspectives to co-create interdependent networks of solidarity; and its goal is to promote human dignity and liberation for a more just, equitable, and sustainable planet. Strippel accomplishes this through dialogue, deep listening, and collective social responsibility.

Pillars of Social Justice Leadership

Continuing Dialogue: a bridging mechanism to advance advocacy, justice and social change.

Deep Listening: as strategy to create a sense of connectedness (belonging) and a just civil society.

Collective Social Responsibility: as a practice to take action for the common good, and building democratic governance and civil society.

Planning Committee

Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, Miami University.

Jacqueline Daugherty, Associate Teaching Professor, Individualized Studies, Miami University. Current Chair of the Robert E. Strippel Memorial Fund Committee.

Janis Dutton, Former Director of Oxford Citizens for Peace and Justice.

Deloris R. Hudson, Alumna, Miami University. Retired Teacher, Member of the National Education Association.

Maricela Lopez, Undergraduate student, Class of 2022, Public Health and History, Miami University.

Kathy McMahom-Klosterman, Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology, Miami University.

Jacqueline Rioja Velarde, Associate Director, Center for American & World Cultures.

About Robert Strippel

Robert Strippel, for whom the fund is named, served the Miami University community for over fifteen years (1958-1974), and he was Miami’s Coordinator of Volunteer and Religious Programs at the end of his career. He had a life-long commitment to human rights and social justice, and was active in helping to organize the Freedom Summer ‘64 Training at the Western College for Women. He is survived by his wife, Jane Strippel, who shares his commitment in her work as a teacher, a conflict mediation trainer, and an active member of the Strippel Fund Committee for years.

The Memorial Fund: A Brief History

The Robert E. Strippel Memorial Fund for Continuing Dialogue on Justice and Human Rights was endowed in 1977 to honor the late Robert E. Strippel, Coordinator of Volunteer and Religious Programs at Miami University, and to further the concerns that were uppermost in his work and personal life: stimulating in the University and the wider community an awareness of and sensitivity to the nature and demands of social justice in the contemporary world, and identifying modes of response to human need and injustice in society.

A committee composed of members of the faculty, staff, student body, Miami University alumni, and members of the community serve as stewards of Robert’s vision and administer the fund. The committee’s mission is to identify current issues that have important implications for justice and human rights, and to determine the best way, through various program formats, to bring the issue to a public forum, and to create opportunities for dialogue on the issue.

Past Programs

2022 Depolarizing Within: Exploring Braver Angels' Methods for Dialogues across Difference

A free workshop to support participants to build skills in:

  • How to be more aware of their own "inner polarizer"
  • How to be critical without demonizing, dismissing or stereotyping large swaths of the population
  • Strategies for intervening constructively in social conversations with like-minded peers when these conversations veer into contempt and ridicule for people who hold other political views.

2021 | (Spring Series) The Responsibility to Act: Health Equity and Social Justice Leadership

2020Voting Rights and Access in 2020

2019| Protect the Vote: Voter Suppression and Rights in 2020, lecture | Camille Wimbish, Election Administration Director, Ohio Voice.

2018 | 21st Century Indian Rights: Interrupting the Dominant Narrative, lecture | Judith LeBlanc, Director of the Native Organizers Alliance and Roddenberry Fellow.

2017 | Legacies of loss: Intergenerational Trauma, Coming Together to Build Resistance, lecture | Laura van Dernoot, Director and Founder, The Trauma Stewardship Institute.

2016 | Eradicating the School to Prison Pipeline, lecture | Judith Browne Dianis, co-director, Advancement Project.
Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline: A Call to Action, panel | Judith Browne Dianis, co-director, Advancement Project, panel moderator.

2015 | Our government is broken because the system is fixed: Creating a real democracy movement, lecture | Greg Coleridge, Director, Justice and Empowerment Program, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee.

2014 | Working Across Race and Age: Building an Inter-generational, Multi-racial Movement, workshops on community organizing | Pam McMichael, Highlander Research and Education Center.
Social Justice Organizing and the Continuing Business of Freedom Summer, lecture | Pam McMichael, Highlander Research and Education Center.

2013 | We the People Not the Corporations, lecture | David Cobb, National Projects Director, Democracy Unlimited.
Implications of Corporate Personhood in Ohio, roundtable discussion with local activists led by Greg Coleridge, American Friends Service Committee.

2012 | Media and Democracy in the Upcoming Upheaval, lecture | Robert McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor, Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Media and Democracy, symposium | Robert McChesney & Jared Ball, associate professor, Department of Communication, Morgan State University and columnist for BlackAgendaReport.com.

2011 | Environmental Justice and the Green-Collar Economy, lecture | Van Jones, civil rights activist; founder of Green for All, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Color of Change -non-profits organizations.
Economic Practice as Environmental Activism: New Directions in Activism, symposium.

Give a Gift

Please consider showing support for this fund by giving a gift.