Moreover, she says, "I was also able to influence the Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus (the primary source of in-service training and continuing education on the island) to allow me to offer a similar course module on 'conflict transformation in the schools,' which again was a first-time occurrence." Dr. Johnson has been invited to return to Cyprus - which she describes as "a small island similar in size to Long Island" -- some time in 2007, "to provide seminars for selected faculty at the university and institute through a 'train the trainers' model," whereby they will learn the curriculum so as to be able to subsequently present it at the pre-service, in-service and graduate levels.

Looking back on her Cyprus experience, Laurie observes, "These frameworks will hopefully increase educators' competence in peace-building and, ultimately, help to promote a broader understanding of conflict and how it can be constructively addressed at the personal and societal levels. The implications for social cohesion can only be conjectured, but my work in other divided venues suggests that this is the way to go - through the educational system, providing the opportunity for youth, the next generation, to understand 'the other' in more peaceful ways and to build the repertoire of attitudes and skills needed to wage peace, instead of war."

Laurie has also worked on similar matters in strife-ridden Northern Ireland. She served as the Sheelagh Murnaghan Visiting Professor at Queens University in Belfast, living there on special leave from 2000 to 2001. While there, as in Cyprus, she focused on the development of systemic approaches to conflict resolution, such as integrated education.

A resident of Garden City, New York, who has taught at Hofstra since 1989, Laurie says that being an outside scholar-practitioner in a divided land can be an asset in this work. "You are viewed as being free of the socio-political baggage that fuels the assumptions and suspicions of dualism…ironically you are more trusted as an outsider here," she says. "You are considered to be free from the biases that unilaterally define most natives." That is significant in countries where the resident experts are presumed as biased toward their own community and thus less able to work to reconcile historical animosities and mistrust.

Closer to home, Laurie, who also pursues scholarly and clinical work specializing in traumatic loss, was called upon last October to serve in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast, stationed in southwestern Louisiana. She also worked with School of Education and Allied Human Services students on a donation program that distributed 130 backpacks with school supplies to children in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, where she had worked as a member of the American Red Cross Mental Health Disaster Relief Services team.

In 2001 Laurie spent time at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan to provide "psychological first aid" to survivors and rescuers after the collapse of the Twin Towers. She continued to work well into 2003 with bereaved families in Nassau County.

Laurie is clearly an "active educator" who enriches her teaching through her human services work both here and abroad.