by William Guth
MSC 529 Conflict Management: Strategy and Practice
Spring 2021
The artifact I produced for MSC 529 Conflict Management: Strategy and Practice was the final paper, a short essay titled Public Apologies. For this assignment students were instructed to select from three historical conflict scenarios and apply strategies and best practices for evaluating and discussing the conflict and its resolution. The areas of conflict and resolution included intercultural negotiation styles, non-violent civil rights protest, and public apologies. I chose the public apologies option based on the historical event wherein President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of the nation to the Japanese American victims of WWII internment camps and their descendants. The apology included a formal written apology and an offer of financial reparations as awarded by the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
The intended outcome of this assignment was to demonstrate a familiarity with the role conflicts play in communication, a knowledge of power styles and conflict analysis, and an ability to discuss and apply conflict management skills in a variety of personal and professional settings. In this assignment I demonstrated that I could evaluate and discuss the concept of the public apology through the lens of an actual historical event and its documented outcome. In this paper I discussed role of public apologies in conflict resolution, the benefits of public apologies for public figures, and the key attributes of an effective apology illustrated by the events of President Clinton’s public apology.
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