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Home  Media Press Clippings Give Peace a Chance: Interview with Dot Maver
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Give Peace a Chance: Interview with Dot Maver |
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March 2, 2007
What do fast-pitch softball and peace have in common?
Aside from finding a little peace if you’re playing right field, the answer is Dot Maver.
Maver, 55, of Burlington, is executive director of the Peace Alliance, an organization that is working to establish a U.S. Department of Peace within the federal government.
In a different lifetime, Maver was known as Dr. Dot, a softball coach and hitting guru with a specialty in hitting fast pitches. She made a video called, “The Maver Method: Secrets of Hitting Success.”
Maver also served as campaign manager for the 2004 presidential bid of Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio. They met in September, 2002, at Ira Allen Chapel, where he was speaking.
When Maver saw Kucinich get out of the car at UVM, she had a “moment of recognition,” she said. Later that day she told him, “Congressman, if you decide to run for president, I’ll work for you,” Maver recalled.
Three months later Kucinich called her and asked if she’d come to Washington, Maver said. Soon, she was his campaign manager.
These professional experiences — whether teaching the bunt, teaching conflict resolution or raising money and building a grassroots organization — share certain characteristics, according to Maver.
“It’s about teamwork and group work,” Maver said. She also believes in a management style that emphasizes human relations. “I love common grassroots organizing and bringing people together and offering that on behalf of the common good.”
Maver, a New Jersey native, lived in Northfield for 10 years before moving to Burlington. She was director of the Institute for Visionary Leadership and taught classes at Norwich University.
The institute offered workshops and programs on “right human relationships,” she said. “It was about how to offer our best selves in the world and get along together.”
After Maver’s work on the Kucinich campaign ended, it was a “natural move” that she become executive director of the Peace Alliance (www.thepeacealliance.org).
Kucinich is co-sponsor of legislation (H.R. 808), recently re-introduced in Congress, that would establish a U.S. Department of Peace. The bill has 60 sponsors in the House of Representatives, according to the organization.
When U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I.-Vt., was in the House of Represenatives, he co-sponsored Peace Department legislation. He said this afternoon, by telephone from Washington, D.C., that creating such a department was important for what it says about the goals and intentions of the country.
“I think it is terribly important that we explain to our kids, to the people of America, and to the people of the world, that America is serious about educating people about peace,” Sanders said. “And how we can do everything we can to solve international conflicts without war.”
Sanders is prepared to support similar legislation in the Senate, he said. (The legislation has not been introduced in the Senate.)
“We may disagree with people; we may hate people,” Sanders said. “But it seems to me that we have to understand that war is a last resort. And the degree to which we can solve international problems without war, is a step forward for humanity.”
While enacting Peace Department legislation is a primary focus of the organization, the group has other goals as well, Maver said.
It is concerned about violence at all levels of society, including domestic and gang violence, school violence and war.
“The ultimate goal is to empower civic activism for a culture of peace,” Maver said. “That’s why I liken it to the civil rights movement and the suffragette movement. ...
“It’s a call from living in a culture of violence to living in a culture of peace. War is not inevitable. Violence is not inevitable.”
The Peace Alliance is not endorsing a presidential candidate, Maver said. Rather, it is “supportive of everyone,” she said.
“We’re not anti-anything,” Maver said. “We operate on the premise that we want to create a world that works for everyone.”
If Maver were Secretary of Peace, she would call for a fresh approach to the war in Iraq, she said. It would center on dialog, and trying to listen to and understand the needs of all parties involved, she said.
“There’s a difference between conflict and violence,” Maver said. “We need to learn to deal wisely and responsibly with conflict before it escalates into violence.”
Contact Sally Pollak at
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or 660-1859.
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