2025 Judge Michael Wei Kwan Lecture Series on Justice and Equity

The Judge Michael Wei Kwan Lectures honor Judge Kwan’s legacy to the community and his 20 years as an adjunct faculty, advisor and mentor to SLCC’s Criminal Justice Program. In his memory, this annual event will feature local and national speakers to address SLCC and the communities we serve on current and relevant topics in equity, law, judicial reform and community engagement.

This year's event is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Thursday, April 8, in TB 104 at the Redwood Campus. Dr. Michael Minch will be the featured speaker.

The lecture series is sponsored by The Office of the Provost for Academic Affairs and supported by a speaker nomination/selection committee.

Judge Michael Wei Kwan Lecture featuring Dr. Michael Minch
Keynote Presentation "Healing Conversations: How to Build Peace in
Divided Communities"
Thursday, April 8, 2025
1 p.m. Book signing immediately following lecture

Taylorsville Redwood Campus 4600 S Redwood Rd.
Rampton Technology Building (TB) Room 104

The political culture of the United States is deeply fractured. Republicans and Democrats view one another with suspicion, anger, resentment, and distrust. A significant number of people claim an endorsement of, or willingness to participate in, violence, to “restore” the America they desire. What can be done?

How can this dangerous and unsettling divide be bridged? Can we experience healing? How can we learn to understand one another, to speak empathetically and encouragingly with one another? What can we learn from conflict analysis and peacebuilding as it has been practiced in the world’s conflict-intense regions? How can we move forward together, building greater communication, appreciation, and reconciliation with others? How can we build a deeper democracy and more peaceful society?

Dr. Minch’s lecture, “Healing Conversations: How to Build Peace in Divided Communities” will address these questions and give answers to them. Professor Minch is both a scholar of conflict and conflict transformation, and also an experienced peacebuilder and teacher of peacebuilding and reconciliation in various global locations.

Seating is first come, first served and doors open at 12:30 p.m.

Free parking for this event will be available in parking lots Q, P, and R.

If you need ADA accommodations, please contact the Accessibility & Disability Services by phone at 801-957-4659 or by TTY at 801-957-4646.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Michael Minch

Dr. Michael Minch recently retired from Utah Valley University where he founded and directed the Peace and Justice Studies program and taught political philosophy and ethics. He served for many years as a member of the Board of Directors for the Peace and Justice Studies Association, the US-Canadian section of the International Peace Research Association. As a PJSA Board member, he was the Research Liaison and co-editor of the book series, Peace Studies: Edges and Innovations (Cambridge Scholars Press). Dr. Minch taught democratic theory, theories of justice, conflict analysis, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, and reconciliation. He also taught and practiced peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, Russia, Haiti, West Africa, Central Asia, Brazil, and the Balkans; and has lectured in universities and locations around the world, from Prague, Copenhagen, Costa Rica, to India, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2008 Gandhi Peace Prize from the Utah Gandhi Alliance; and has also received awards for teaching, research, and service from UVU. Dr. Minch is a founding board member of Education for Global Peace, where he is now writing and producing a Peace Education Academy curriculum for primary and secondary school teachers. He also serves on the board of directors serving a project of building a university in Guinea Bissau, one of the world’s poorest countries, and one, at present, without a university. The book he is now writing is tentatively titled, Deep Democracy: The Only Way to a Peaceful and Sustainable Future. There, he argues that democracy is fundamentally and intrinsically, a moral theory and moral practice that is radically egalitarian, inclusive, peace-building, and that it is time to extend democratic partnership to other species.