Lisa-Marie Napoli, Ph.D., received her master's in public administration in Public Policy and Management from The Ohio State University and her doctoral degree in Public Affairs at Indiana University. She is currently Director of the PACE program. With a passion to bridge conflicting perspectives for greater understanding, she specializes in mediation and facilitation services, conflict management research, leadership and public policy education, civic skills development, community engaged learning, and capacity-building practices to support deliberative democracy. She joined the PACE program at its inception in 2009, led the development of curricular content for the core PACE courses, and continues to serve the program in a multitude of ways. In addition to being program director for over 5 years, a few other outstanding contributions to the program include her roles as Founder of Voices for Democracy and Constructive Conversation and Founding Chair of IU's Big Ten Voting Challenge - both campus and community-wide initiatives designed to enhance better dialogue, pluralism, and healthy democratic engagement.
Lisa-Marie is committed to co-creating new ways to constructively deal with public tensions in an ever-changing world of ideas, ways of relating, and notions of what democracy should be. She is deeply motivated, curious, and patient in listening to and responding to community needs, engaging with students, exploring possibilities, establishing networks of innovation, and applying knowledge. The goal of these activities is to create an awareness, a collective empathy, and a path for moving forward.
She has worked extensively and been inspired by colleagues at the Kettering Foundation, in particular the Practices of Democratic Initiatives (Centers for Public Life), the National Issues Forum Institute, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, Campus Compact, American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement communities.
Much of Lisa-Marie's work focuses on leadership, conflict management, college students and politics, educating for democracy, climate change, restorative justice, community health, public voice, and other social issues. She has over 25 years of experience as a trained facilitator, mediator, conflict coach, and workshop trainer. She is active in the city of Bloomington as a public engagement consultant and community organizer, especially with the local Community Justice and Mediation program.
The College of Arts