Third/ Fourth Week

After the absurdly cold arctic temperatures shortened my work week last week, I decided to consolidate last week with this week. Though the icy grip of winter has not let up at all work must continue in preparation for the 35th Annual Gala. Over the last week and a half I began to tackle the Center's digitization project in which I am transferring a host of VHS tapes and DVDs containing training videos and aids used for mediation training into digital format and published via YouTube. In doing this the Center for Conflict Resolution will be able to not only consolidate the bulk of its training videos but also provide universal access to the material to all of its mediators regardless of time or place. Additionally I have put my archival experience into practice as I have been reorganizing the filing system for each of CCR's volunteer mediators past and present. This smaller project is more or less merely a re-consolidation and a reassessment of the organizational schematic used by the Center for Conflict Resolution and will in theory make the organization of volunteer mediators  and their personal information more efficiently stored as well as accessible. In the coming weeks, I hope to continue my digitization process while at the same time creating detailed synopses of the training aids already posted on YouTube. 

Second Week

In my second week at the Center for Conflict Resolution, I have begun my initial assessment of CCR's (Center for Conflict Resolution) training multimedia and established a tentative plan of digitizing everything on DVD or CD onto cloud based databases (YouTube and Google Drive). In doing so it is my hope that any member of the organization will then have whatever training aids and/or forms available to them no matter where they are. This focus on organization and efficiency is paramount in my thinking considering the vast amount of information required to mediate over the legal disputes the Center deals with everyday. In addition to my digitization I have also begun my introduction to the Center's volunteer databases which I hope to be able to streamline in order to facilitate not only speed but also the efficient use of such valuable information. In the coming weeks, both myself and my supervisor will begin hammering out the final details of the Center for Conflict Resolution's 35th Annual Gala. 

Introductions

Hello all,

My name is Jared Matthews, I am a senior at Loyola University Chicago majoring in History with minors in Anthropology and Islamic World Studies. In my final semester as an undergraduate student, I will be interning with the Center for Conflict Resolution where I hope to establish a foundational knowledge of conflict resolution which I can then extrapolate into a broader context to fit my studies and research interests. Throughout my time with the Center for Conflict Resolution, I will be assisting with mediation cases when required, organizing and streamlining the Center's volunteer database, planning the Center's 35th Annual Gala, as well as a digitization project of multimedia training videos. I look forward to this opportunity and further diversifying my own work experiences.