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Elizabeth Franz has been teaching PACS 4150: Mediation Skills since Fall 2024, bringing more than a decade of hands-on mediation experience into the classroom. A trained mediator, practitioner, and innovator, Elizabeth draws on her work across a wide range of alternative dispute resolution models to help students develop practical skills, reflective awareness, and confidence in real-world conflict settings. 

In the interview below, Elizabeth shares more about her teaching approach, her professional journey, and her work as a 2025–26 Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) Faculty Fellow alongside PACS Director Michael English.

The CTL Faculty Fellows program brings together a cross-disciplinary cohort of educators to address pressing teaching and learning challenges through innovative, technology-enhanced approaches. Fellows participate in a fall seminar to explore emerging topics in pedagogy and collaboratively design an initiative implemented in spring, with a focus on learner-centered, inclusive, and evidence-based practices. Participants receive a $3,000 professional development award upon successful completion of the program.

As a CTL Faculty Fellow, what kinds of teaching or learning questions are you most interested in exploring through this work?

I am deeply interested in how the structure of a classroom can shift from modeling top-down, hierarchical authority to modeling true collaboration and democracy. Often, the traditional setup of an instructor at the front of the room inadvertently trains students to be compliant "worker bees" rather than active participants in their own learning. My primary question is: how can we create a learning environment that offers the "reps" and repetition needed to train a generation of cooperative members? This inquiry aligns perfectly with mediation, where participants are the experts in their own lives and no decision is made without their consent. I’m exploring how we can encourage students to turn toward one another to build relationships, practice collective problem-solving, and engage in the kind of democratic collaboration that feels counterintuitive in our hyper-competitive society.

Through the CTL Faculty Fellows program, you and Michael English are working on a shared teaching initiative. Can you give us a snapshot of what you’re proposing and what excites you most about it?

Michael and I are proposing that the learning experience can—and should—model collaborative games. Research shows that play is essential to how humans learn and retain information, so we are gamifying both the content and the course structure. We are exploring tools like to help students creatively imagine better futures together and using "choose-your-own-adventure" style explorations of course material. Most excitingly, we’re piloting a "Cohort Health" system in my mediation class. Instead of the instructor being the sole arbiter of "what happens when things go wrong," the students use a voting system to democratically decide how to handle challenges like late assignments or missed classes. It’s a reward-based system—not a punishment—that makes explicit the fact that for us to work together, we have to show up, follow through, and maintain an active feedback loop.

What drew you to teaching in PACS, and what keeps you excited about working with PACS students?

Initially, I was drawn to PACS by the opportunity to work with colleagues I deeply respect, like Michael English and Tyler Keyworth. Having a degree in Peace Studies myself, I know firsthand that this is the most useful skill set a person can possess, especially at this moment in our history. I love that our students are "plugged in" and genuinely care about the world. What keeps me excited is the ability to provide them with tangible, industry-standard skills. Students in my class don't just get credit; they earn a mediation training certificate. This makes them more competitive in the job market and ensures they leave ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä as better neighbors and professionals who know how to navigate the challenging conversations that are inevitable whenever two or more people are in a room.

How do your professional experiences outside the classroom shape how you teach and engage students?

Being a professional mediator makes me a more needs-oriented and receptive instructor. I am practiced in collaboration and I’m not afraid of the "heat" of challenging conversations; instead, I see conflict as an opportunity to identify and meet human needs. My work as a practitioner keeps me humble and reminds me to honor the trust students put in us to set them up for a future they want to live. As a Colorado local, it is also deeply rewarding to "pay it forward" to my own community. Whether my students become professional mediators or go into entirely different fields, I am using my professional experience to ensure they leave with better communication, relationship-building, and collective decision-making skills.

What’s one thing you hope students carry with them long after your course ends?

Above all, I hope they carry the value of listening to understand, rather than just listening to respond. I want them to leave with the ability to hear and express their own feelings and values clearly, which is the foundation of finding "win-win" solutions. I also hope they practice accepting fellow humans as they are, and meeting them where they are. For those who do choose to enter the field of mediation, I hope they see the certificate they earn as a doorway into a lifelong craft—one that has sustained me for 14 years and continues to be vital for a healthy society.

What is one fun fact about yourself that might surprise students?

Students might be surprised to learn that I can knit a hat in just one hour! I’m also a local who grew up right around the ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä campus, though these days I make the hour-long commute from Littleton, where I live with my partner of 25 years. When I’m not mediating or teaching, you can usually find me playing the ukulele, salsa dancing, playing board games or out at the bowling alley.