Over his long lifetime, born in 1914, Landrum Bolling has had exceptional international experiences in conflict resolution and in facilitating dialogue between members of different religions, cultures and ethnicities.    (see http://www.vimeo.com/channels/landrumreflects)

A journalist at the beginning of his career, Landrum Bolling was a foreign correspondent with assignments in Rome, Vienna and Berlin.  He served as a war correspondent with Tito's Partisans during World War II, covering the liberation of Sarajevo from Hitler's occupation army.  During his long writing career Dr. Bolling has written or co-authored several books, including Search for Peace in the Middle East, This is Germany, Private Foreign Aid, Reporters Under Fire, and Conflict Resolution: Track Two Diplomacy.   

Search for Peace in the Middle East, published in 1970, was translated into many languages and began Dr. Bolling's lifetime quest to help bring about peace in the Holy Land between Jews and Palestinians.   His profound and original thinking at the time helped inspire what was to become known more than a decade later as the "Two-State Solution".   In pursuit of this goal Dr. Bolling personally knew and worked with many of the political and social leaders in the Middle East, met in the White House with President Nixon, and served as an unofficial interlocutor between President Carter and Yasser Arfat.     (see http://www.vimeo.com/channels/landrumremembers)

Trained as a political scientist at the University of Tennessee and the University of Chicago, Dr. Bolling served on the faculties of Beloit College, Brown University and Earlham College, where he was president for 15 years. He was also a research professor at The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Dr. Bolling also served as President of the Lilly Endowment, one of the largest grant-making foundations in the world, and as Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Foundations.

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Bolling was drawn repeatedly in the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict and became personally acquainted with a number of the leading political personages on both sides. Beginning in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, when direct official communication between Washington and the PLO was forbidden, he was one of the informal, "nonofficial" links entrusted with delivering messages between the White House and the State Department and top Palestinian leaders.

Dr. Bolling was for many years a senior advisor and Board Member of Conflict Management Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a nonprofit agency that originated from the Harvard University Program in Negotiation, and is now a division of Mercy Corps. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington.

Dr. Bolling has served as a senior advisor to Mercy Corps for much of the organization's history. He was for more than three years Mercy Corps' senior representative in the Balkans, stationed in Sarajevo. In working with local and national government officials, religious leaders and non-governmental organizations in Bosnia he developed initiatives for inter-ethnic and inter-religious cooperation and recognition.  In 2008 the new Mercy Corps headquarters on top of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem was dedicated to Dr. Bolling with him in attendance.

Dr. Bolling now works out of the Mercy Corp office in Washington, DC as a senior advisor on matters of policy and program development. He also serves as President of Pax World Service, a Mercy Corps affiliate that promotes citizen diplomacy.

Dr. Bolling has received more than 30 honorary doctorates from U.S. and foreign universities. In June of 2000 he was honored, along with Senator George Mitchell, with a "Peacemaker/Peace Builder" award by the National Peace Foundation. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville awarded Bolling, a 1933 graduate, with its prestigious Founders Medal in 1998. Similar recognition has been accorded him by Earlham College, where the Landrum Bolling Center for the Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies was dedicated in 2002.  In 2005 Dr. Bolling received the CASE award for his life service to education.   In 2010 Dr. Bolling received the lifetime achievement aware from the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations (NCUSAR).

                                                                                                   FROM EARLHAM COLLEGE

                                        The Landrum Bolling Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Social Sciences at Earlham College

Landrum Bolling served as president of Earlham College from 1958 to 1973, then as president and chairman of the board of Lilly Endowment Inc., and later as chairman, then chief executive officer, of the national Council on Foundations. In 1982 he became research professor of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Because of his non-official but close involvement in Middle East affairs, Landrum became well acquainted with many of the leaders among all sides in the conflict. From time to time he served as an informal "messenger" between political leaders and governments that had difficulty in communicating directly. In this connection, he functioned as a link for The White House and State Department with Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization in more than one administration, but particularly during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. He has maintained a relationship with these and other world leaders to this day.

Landrum has served as chairman or board member of the Associated Colleges of Indiana, the Indiana Conference on Higher Education, and the national Association of Protestant Colleges and Universities, and the Association of American Colleges. He has been awarded honorary degrees by more than 25 U.S. and foreign colleges and universities, including Oberlin College, Haverford College, Indiana University and Waseda University in Tokyo.

Landrum is currently director at large of Mercy Corps International, a nonprofit voluntary organization that exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping build secure, productive and just communities. For two years after the cessation of hostilities in Bosnia, he assisted Mercy Corps in projects of economic development and reconstruction in the devastated city of Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia. Landrum is also senior advisor and board member of the Conflict Management Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C.

Landrum has worked a lifetime to unite disparate peoples into peaceful relationships founded on mutual respect and equal justice. In that same spirit of unity, the Landrum Bolling Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Social Sciences at Earlham will bring together separate but interrelated and mutually informing disciplines into a common home where they may better thrive. We can think of no better tribute to Landrum Bolling, whose life is a continuing testimony to mutual understanding.