Conflict between individuals, groups, organizations, and nations is inevitable and universal. In business, law, government, social services, and education, conflict takes time, costs money and uses human resources, often in destructive ways. Academicians in many disciplines study conflict and everyone addresses conflict in some way.

The graduate program in Human Behavior and Conflict Management is one of an increasing number of academic programs to focus on developing scholarship and professional practice in conflict management. The premise of the program is that conflict in most arenas presents opportunities for learning, for creativity and constructive work, and for conciliation and moving forward.

The Conflict Management Field

Since the early 1970’s, the practice of conflict resolution has grown rapidly in the United States and now includes dispute resolution systems in business and industry, public dispute resolution processes, peer mediation in schools and colleges, community settlement centers, and mediation of family conflicts. The increasing complexity, costs, and delays of litigation have overburdened courts and led to court-connected mediation and arbitration programs in South Carolina and most other states.

Graduate program courses balance scholarship and practice skills to prepare students to be in-house and independent consultants, managers, and practitioners in their chosen fields or to pursue further academic degrees.

Graduate Program Design

This part-time graduate program is designed for working women and men who may enroll in the Master’s program, a 15-hour graduate certificate program, or in selected courses. Classes are scheduled on five weekends each fall and spring semester. For the summer semester, classes are also scheduled on weekends in Maymester and in two summer terms.

To complete the 36 hours required for the Master’s degree, a two-year course rotation is recommended, with most students taking two courses each semester. Each Master’s student completes a practicum project near the end of the program, which may be a practice skills placement, a program design, a case analysis, or an action research project. Students may move from one program to another, with full course credit.

Exemption from Required Courses

The graduate program is designed to introduce the student to the field and to guide the students development through a sequenced and internally consistent set of courses. Generally, taking all required courses in the Columbia College program is preferred. To accommodate special circumstances, a student in the degree program may request exemption from selected course requirements based on significant professional experience, undergraduate coursework, or professional trainings which appear to duplicate the work of the required course.

The students advisor and program director may approve the exemption of a student from a particular required course based on a department exam for the course prepared by department faculty. If the student obtains a satisfactory grade on this exam, the student may be exempt from the course requirement and may substitute a second elective for the required course. To be considered for this exemption, a student must request exemption from a course before the student begins the Masters program and must take the department exam no later than the end of classes for the first semester of graduate work A student may not transfer or substitute credit for undergraduate courses, work experience, or professional trainings for graduate credit. A student may transfer graduate credit and receive exemptions for no more than a combined total of nine hours course work in the Masters program.

Program Students and Graduates

Our students are women and men from diverse backgrounds who work in insurance and communication industries, business, health care, social services, law and law enforcement, government, education, non-profits, and family counseling. Students and graduates use their work here to expand and enrich their primary professional work, to qualify for promotions and for new positions related to conflict management, and to develop their own businesses as conflict management consultants, trainers, and practitioners.

Alumni Testimonials

Amber L. Curtis, Special Investigator
The HBCM program has impacted and benefitted my professional and personal lives. For instance, I conducted an interview with a target who was an African American female doctor a few weeks ago, where I was the lead investigator, which essentially boiled down to me being the person probing the doctor for the answers we needed. Approximately forty-five minutes into the interview, my boss, the director, interjected because he grew impatient listening to the target's "sob story". After he interrupted and challenged her answers and imposed his authority, the target grew noticeably nervous and tense and was not cooperative from that point on.
 
What I took away from that interview was the feedback I received from the attorney, investigator and law clerk, who were also present at the interview. We had a brief meeting with the director, following the interview, and during this meeting, the attorney told the director that I had established a rapport with the target which allowed the target to feel comfortable and at ease. The attorney went on to say that the target was comfortable talking to me and as soon as the director barged in, the interview went south. The other investigator and law clerk agreed with the attorney, much to the dismay of our director. I sat in my chair and reflected on the compliments and realized that my ability to interview and establish trust, build rapport and LISTEN, resulted from the two-year program I participated in at Columbia College.
 
The classes that teach you to listen and reflect and accept differences go a long way. They enable you to adapt to different social situations and allow you to acknowledge new ideas and concepts and embrace diversity. The class discussions were enlightening due to the fact that we had classmates from all walks of life with very different life experiences. We learned to embrace young and old, gay and straight, married and single, black and white, American and non-American, liberal and conservative, religious/spiritual and non-religious. We learned to embrace our differences and instead of finding everything we did not have in common, we sought our commonalities. Imagine me, who is young, gay, liberal (to a certain extent), white, non-religious, with no children working with someone thirty years older than me who is religious, conservative, traditional, married with children, African American etc and all I can see is that she is a great person, with a great spirit, great smile, full of wisdom, worthy of my friendship and admiration. This is what I took out of the program. I have learned we have many more things in common than we do that differ and even if we do not agree with everyone's views, we accept them, we try to learn about them, we try to understand them and we shift our focus to what is common amongst each other for it is much easier to be at peace than it is to be at war with people, simply because we are different.
 
I am currently in the process of applying for federal criminal investigator positions and my goal is to be a federal criminal investigator within two years. Now that I have a Master's Degree and experience in investigations and law enforcement, I am ready to embark on a new journey. I strongly recommend the HBCM program to anyone, in any job arena, because what is learned spans beyond the logistics of your job duties, far into the social parameters that we are enveloped in because we are human beings. With this program, you will learn to be a better human being.
 

Robert Creed, 2004
So much of the work I do is purely conflict management. I see many situations in our stores that are allowed to become major conflicts because our people are uncomfortable having the hard discussions concerning job performance until infractions become so severe that managers are forced to react. I find the interpersonal skills training where I learned to use words to convey concern without doing so in a confrontational manner, to be one of the most useful skills I developed. Using "we" statements versus “you" statements is a mediation tool I use on a regular basis to diffuse tension.  I get calls from field management every day asking my advice on how to begin conversations with employees that will focus on issues rather than the employee feeling they are being attached. I have known for many years that working in conflict management/mediation was the work I wanted to do and was best suited for. I am fortunate to be working in an organization with a group of people who are beginning to appreciate the skills I bring to the table.