Conflict resolution as an academic field was built by pioneers like John Burton on the idea that conflict resolution academics must accomplish three basic interlocking tasks: conduct cutting-edge research, educate students, and make a positive contribution to the real-world work of practitioners engaged in resolving actual conflicts. Over time and as the field has grown, so have the demands to produce research deemed rigorous enough according to increasingly competitive and rigid traditional standards and so too have the demands of teaching growing numbers of students. Research and teaching commitments thus diminish the time and support available to engage in practice. In this article, I consider those pressures within universities and also consider the options available to conflict resolution scholar–practitioners outside the traditional university

In this article, I describe my career as a pracademic. Over several decades, I have been able to maintain a substantial private practice in public dispute resolution and also meet the teaching, advising, and research demands of an academic career. I have achieved this by engaging primarily in action research: I begin with “problems” in the field and work collaboratively with stakeholders to generate “solutions” that meet their interests. I then document and analyze these interventions to build prescriptive theory through systematic reflection on my own involvement.

What conditions, including standards for promotion and tenure, should we be cultivating at universities if we want scholar practitioners (or pracademics) in conflict-related fields to thrive in academic settings? This article examines the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University as an example of “positive deviance” — a university and an academic program that wholeheartedly support faculty members who engage in extensive practice, including long-term involvement with peacebuilding processes. Three conditions — location, culture, and the application of peacebuilding strategies within the university — have given rise to and continue to support this system even as the university embraces a commitment to increasing scholarly productivity by faculty members.

The interests, needs, and academic practices of conflict analysis scholars are often fundamentally at odds with those of conflict resolution scholar practitioners. In this essay, I make suggestions for new academic arrangements that could allow both groups to be productive and empowered in their theory building and teaching and also have positive impacts on the development of students and on global institutions and conflict environments.