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JUNE 15-20, 2026
Endicott College, Beverly, Massachusetts
A.K. Rice Institute | Group Relations International
Annual Residential Conference
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OUR CONTEXT
Our Context
Dear Prospective Member,
The world feels on edge. Familiar structures of authority are faltering, while new forms have yet to emerge. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci described such moments as an interregnum — a time when “the old is dying and the new cannot be born.”
In such times, authority is contested. Roles are unclear. Task becomes confused. Disorientation and division rise — in our institutions and within ourselves.
If we are living in an interregnum, what might a Group Relations Conference offer?
Group Relations Conferences provide space to study what is happening beneath the surface of group and organizational life. Rather than only reflecting on the sharp edges of the world, we experience them together in real time. We examine how authority is taken up, resisted, projected, or avoided. We explore how roles are shaped — consciously and unconsciously. We study how task becomes clarified, distorted, or lost when anxiety rises.
This year’s theme, Leadership and Legacy: ART – Where the Edges Meet, invites us to examine:
• The edge between inner authority and authority conferred by others
• The edge between personal identity and institutional role
• The edge between difference and belonging
• The edge between legacy and emergence
Authority, Role, and Task provide structure; the art of leadership emerges in how we inhabit them.
Edges are not neutral. They are charged intersections — places where anxiety intensifies and lines are quickly drawn. At the edge, we may feel compelled to simplify, to resolve ambiguity too quickly. Binaries emerge: us and them, right and wrong, good and bad. Complexity narrows. Our capacity to imagine multiple perspectives and creative alternatives contracts.
And yet, edges are also places of encounter and possibility — where the known and unknown meet, where we encounter the “other,” and where relationship begins again, within ourselves and with one another. If we can remain present at the boundary without collapsing into certainty, the edge becomes a site of discovery. It becomes a place where leadership is tested, deepened, and brought to life.
How do we remain at the edge without retreating into rigidity? How do we tolerate complexity long enough to discover what else may be present?
Using a systems psychodynamic approach, we will study how we participate — often unconsciously — in processes that both protect and inadvertently diminish dignity, frequently in the name of care, justice, or order. Rather than standing outside these dynamics, we will experience and examine them together in the here and now.
This is my third and final year directing the AKRI–GRI National Conference. The themes that have shaped my tenure — divides, dissonance, boundaries, borders, intersectionality, complexity, justice, and spirit — have emerged from living and working within contested social and institutional spaces. Like many of you, I have learned that edges are not merely lines of division, but places where identity, authority, meaning, and purpose are continually negotiated.
The invitation this year is to discover (y)our authority, (y)our role, and (y)our task in context — and to explore the ART of leadership together at the edges where we meet. Join us.
Sincerely,
Evangeline Sarda
Conference Director
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
About the
conference
Who is the conference for?
This conference offers an experiential opportunity to study the unconscious processes of group and organizational life — processes that are ubiquitous, yet rarely available for sustained examination. When members and staff devote themselves to this shared task, the hidden complexities and patterned dynamics of systems become more accessible.
The conference functions as a temporary organization designed for learning. Rather than relying on expert presentations, participants study a living system as it emerges and develops in real time. The roles we take up, the authority we claim or resist, and the ways we pursue or lose sight of our task become the primary data for inquiry.
Through disciplined attention to individual and collective experience, members learn to see and hear what is happening both above and below the surface. From this vantage point, we test new ways of exercising leadership and engaging difference — discovering how to be more effective in aligning authority, role, and task in our organizations and communities.
Joining the conference offers an opportunity to grapple with and reflect upon the full spectrum of human experience — harmonious and discordant, creative and defensive. This learning strengthens our capacity to take up our complex roles with greater clarity and intention in the systems we inhabit.
A diverse membership creates the conditions for rich and meaningful learning. Participants from a wide range of professions — including mental health, community advocacy, pastoral work, organizational consultation, education, art, law, leadership, management, technology, and human resources — have found group relations learning deeply applicable to their work.
Learning through experience about the overt and covert functioning of human systems requires the capacity to tolerate ambiguity, division, paradox, and anxiety. At the edges of difference, our fears can lead us toward defensive interpretations that protect us from discomfort but limit understanding.
This conference is designed for those who want to remain engaged at these edges — to deepen their ability to participate in nuanced dialogue, exercise thoughtful authority, and work constructively within complexity. No specific professional background is required; however, emotional resilience and curiosity are important resources for this kind of learning.
WHAT CAN I LEARN
What can I learn about?
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How groups find, lose, distort, and rediscover their primary task
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How competition and collaboration, envy and love, conflict and coalition-building influence work
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How anxiety alters our relationship to purpose
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How we respond when the world feels unpredictable or disorienting
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How we claim authority — and how we relinquish or resist it
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How authority is conferred, projected, distorted, or withheld
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How visible and invisible identities can impact the meaning and experience of power
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How authority shifts in uncertain and rapidly changing contexts
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How we take up, inhabit, negotiate and renegotiate roles
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How dividedness — real and imagined — shapes our experience of self and other
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How to hold on to our own experience as we try to hold the experiences of others
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How roles can emerge at the intersections of identity, expectation, task and need
WHERE THE EDGES MEET
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The intersections and fluid nature of most things, including boundaries, authority, role, task, power and identity
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The tension between legacy and emergence — how we inherit, honor, rupture, and create
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The connection between self and system; the tangled relatedness of part and whole
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How divides can function both as defenses against anxiety and as pathways toward deeper relatedness
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How to remain present with paradox, dissonance, and resonance — and to stay with the trouble and what is difficult
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Leadership at the edge as practice, improvised and shaped in relationship and relatedness
CONFERENCE EVENTS
Conference Events
The conference is organized as a series of events that provide opportunities to learn through experience in a variety of social contexts. The events will begin and end promptly at the times designated. A final schedule will be provided at registration.
OPENING AND CLOSING PLENARIES
Plenaries begin and end the conference, providing an opportunity for members and staff to express and explore their thoughts and feelings on crossing into and out of the conference space.
SMALL STUDY GROUPS
These provide an opportunity to learn about dynamics in small groups similar to teams and committees. The small study group consists of 12 or fewer members with one or two staff as consultants.
LARGE STUDY GROUPS
These include all members in the conference and provide an opportunity to study the dynamics that arise in larger groups where it is more difficult to know or see every member and where group myths reflecting various assumptions can arise quickly and powerfully to impact emotions, thoughts and behavior. A team of consultants will work with the large study groups.
INTERGROUP EVENT AND INTERSECTING SYSTEMS EVENT
These events provide members with an opportunity to form their own groups and determine their own group task, leadership structure and processes for managing boundaries. They each open and close with a plenary and take place over several sessions. The Intergroup Event provides an opportunity to study how groups form and authorize their members to do work on their behalf, while the Intersecting Systems Event widens the lens of focus to include political and systemic forces that arise as different groups form and interact with each other and management.
SILENT EVENT / SENSING MATRIX / INTEGRATION EVENT
The task of these events is to explore the state of the conference system through silence, through creative expression, through the body and through dreams and associations, and to offer spaces where integration of complex learning and dynamics can occur.
BRIDGING GROUPS / TRILOGY EVENTS
Bridging groups and the Trilogy Event provide participants the opportunity to reflect on their roles and experiences within the conference, and later, the application of conference experience to life beyond the conference.
PRIMARY AIM TASK PURPOSE
Primary Task | Aim | Purpose
The primary task while in the conference is to learn from experience about Authority, Role, and Task in relation to leadership and legacy by studying the conscious and unconscious dynamics that emerge in the here and now of the conference and its wider context.
The aim of the conference is to create conditions in which participants can exercise their authority and freedom to take up working roles in service of the conference task.
The purpose of the conference is to build leadership capacity for life beyond the conference and to cultivate a spirit of inquiry into organizational life in order to promote thoughtful, humane, and effective systems.
06_PRAXIS BUILDING
Praxis Building
This conference offers a Praxis Building opportunity for those who would like to build their capacity to understand and utilize a Group Relations stance. Interested participants have an opportunity to take up a consulting role in their Small Study Group and receive direct feedback and role analysis from senior staff and fellow members.
Participation in at least two group relations conferences (or the equivalent) is required. Those who wish to apply should complete the supplemental questions at the end of the regular registration form. More information will follow upon initial application. For more information, contact mak wemuk and Yihe Yang at GRIeastGRC@gmail.com.
Early application is highly recommended.
Research
Seth Harkins, EdD will be examining data about the learning that takes place during and after this conference. As part of this research, you and staff may be invited to participate in pre- and post- conference surveys and interviews. Your decision to participate in these elements is completely voluntary, and personal identity will be confidential
STAFF
Conference staff
Staff administer and manage the conference as a whole and take up consulting roles during conference events. Staff articulate the primary task, aim and purpose, and design the conference to serve those goals. As management, staff manage the conditions of conference events, particularly in relation to time, task and territory. Staff do not manage the participants or their behavior. Instead, participants are free to engage the primary task, aim and purpose as they choose and as they authorize themselves and each other to do.
As consultants, staff link their own experiences to the activities of the conference and offer working hypotheses and reflections that explore the unconscious aspects of the organizational behavior that is emerging. In these roles, staff are actively involved in the life of the conference. Their reflections focus on group level dynamics rather than on the individual and on unconscious as well as conscious dynamics.
The ways in which staff work are open for examination. Staff for the conference will be drawn from the list below, and may include others not listed. The roles listed below may change to accommodate changes in circumstance. A final list of staff and their roles will be provided at registration on-site.
Evangeline Sarda, JD (she/her)
Conference Director
As an Associate Clinical Law Professor at Boston College Law School, I co-direct the Criminal Process Clinic, direct the Prosecution Clinic (since 1995) and was a former faculty director of Leaders Entering and Advancing Public Service (LEAPS). I teach a course in Systems Psychodynamics and Law and a Critical Race Theory Reading Group. I am a board member of Group Relations International (GRI) and Centre for Social Dreaming (CSD), a fellow of the A. K. Rice Institute, a former board member of CSGSS, a past Treasurer of the Research and Education Collaborative with Al-Quds University (RECA) and candidate of NIODA. I have directed and staffed numerous GRCs around the world and regularly conduct GR trainings. A graduate of Yale College (Whim ‘84) and Columbia Law School, a former Domestic Violence Prosecutor in Massachusetts, a past high school English teacher at Hillhouse High School in Connecticut - aspects of my family heritage extend from the University of the Cordilleras in Baguio, Philippines, through India, to American Key Food Products in Closter, New Jersey. Sitting atop Kala Patthar, watching the sunset over Sagarmatha, Nuptse, Lhotse and Ama Dablam, listening to the Köln Concerts -
mak wemuk, JD (he/him)
Associate Director of the Conference and Director of Praxis Building
At an edge between mortal existence and nonexistence, I am in the best period of my life. After years of work and loving assistance, the shackles of my childhood dramas are open, and I am free to let my young heart explore the world. I am swaddled by people who love me and whom I love, especially the four powerful young women who are my daughters. I am passionate about my work as a leadership coach, organizational consultant, and Group Relations practitioner, all of which often feels like play to me. WBC is my GR home, but I have emotional and organizational bonds to AKRI (I’m a Fellow), GRI, ICI, and the Boston and Chicago centers. As a brown-skinned Latine and Indigenous person, I am at considerable risk as the U.S. teeters over the edge into lawless fascism. The cormorant bird is sacred to my Coahuiltecan people. “Blackbird singing (at the edge) of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.”
rev. lyla meadows, BCC (she/her, they/them)
Director of Administration (Operations)
I am a gardener, auntie, hospital chaplain; leatherdyke, grad student, novice mesayoq. I’m shaped by the mixing of ethnic, sexual, and spiritual lines. I’m not yet a member of any GR organization—which feels almost predictably me, as i often seem to hover at boundaries of belonging. Through this conference, i hope to look with new lenses at what pulls me to make a home at the threshold, again and again. This spring, i’ve been growing native plants in the three-foot sidewalk strip outside my apartment. To protect the seedlings from foot traffic, i built small wood fences around them. I love nurturing an ecology just outside my home. Sometimes i wonder in what ways i am a part of it; other times i admire it from my window, dirt still in my nailbeds, as this delicate edge of a legacy blooms between concrete.
Rebecca Abell, PsyD, CGP (she/her)
Director of Administration (Systems)
I am a clinical psychologist working at the outpatient clinic of a hospital in Washington DC, primarily facilitating therapy groups. I have been heavily involved in board participation through the Boston Center but now think of the WBC as my GR home. One of my major growth edges is figuring out how to be a mom. I’ve had a hard time figuring out where I end and my three kids begin. GR work has felt like a space that is mine where I can be my authentic self. I can come across with a hard edge when I’m passionate about something; sometimes this gets me in trouble. Over time I’ve gotten much harder and more confrontational in some areas and in others I’ve softened considerably. I taught myself to sew and I love to make myself dresses; the edges are usually a little messy.
Gabriel Baldwin (he/she not they)
Administrator
I am a forester, saw mill operator, builder, farmer, forager, hunter, and father in mid-coast Maine (Penobscot territory). I explore and blur the edges of the human/nature and life/death divides. I published HOMESTEAD or DIE, a board game where players work together to overcome seasonal disasters while struggling to survive the market collapse. I facilitate Biodanza dance, teach traditional Buddhist meditation through a radical lens, offer Hakomi Somatic Psychotherapy, consult to groups, and lead rites of passage. As an Autistic person, my nervous system is organized differently, which means the way I experience life and communicate is often misunderstood, making it hard to connect with others. I am a white American of English, Turkish/Greek, Dutch, and German heritage. I am a GRI Co-Creator, AKRI member and LDRS graduate, CSGSS member, and Grex Interim Treasurer.
Yihe Yang
Administrator, Praxis
I am a professor teaching intercultural leadership and group dynamics, a role that mirrors my own experience of navigating multiple worlds. My involvement spans several Group Relations organizations —AKRI, GRI, and IGRC —where I hold various roles that reflect the complex, multi-institutional dynamics of my life. As a foreigner living and working in the U.S., I constantly shift between languages and identities, existing as a boundary spanner at the intersection of diverse cultures and ideologies. I find myself deeply drawn to human connection yet instinctively resistant to it, always lingering at the "edge" as I strive to find and claim my own authority. For me, ART (Authority, Role, Task) is a living practice of defining where the world ends and I begin.
Alfredo Bambarén (he/him)
Consultant
I am a 69-year-old Peruvian economist and coach, as well as a former university professor. Throughout my professional career, I have worked on social projects, successfully managing community relations between mining companies and local communities, and facilitating the achievement of mutually beneficial agreements and sustainable development. I am now retired and a member of AKRI’s Board of Directors. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, writing and open-water swimming. I am currently reorienting my life towards my dreams, my legacy, and my long-forgotten leadership skills. After spending fifty years writing down my dreams in solitude, I now wish to transform them into stories and share my inner world with others. A long time ago, I had a dream in which a child was weaving a large, star-shaped kite out of wood and string in a room next to a window. I now believe that the star represented a book that has been in the making ever since, and that the child is the inner tailor and author within me.
Leslie Brissett
Consultant
Candice Crawford-Zackian, PsyD
Consultant
I am a toddler mom to a brilliant, spiritually intuitive, and opinionated two-year-old—my first and likely only. I am the daughter of a cinematographer, painter, sculptor, and Aikido master, and of a social worker and unofficial consul to many world-language students at Howard University. I am a musician—a vocalist and lyricist of alt/metal, progressive hip-hop, and alt/blues, with bands, recordings, and East Coast tours under my belt. A clinically trained psychologist turned organizational consultant, executive coach, and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I teach elements of group relations theory to senior public educators. Since my mother’s passing three years ago, I’ve been on a spiritual journey that has taken me to Egypt, through trainings in intuitive and psychic practices, shamanism, family constellations with a hint of mediumship, and a Death Doula training. I’m currently in deep contemplation about my next work of ART in the world.
Anita Prasad (she/her)
Consultant
I identify in many ways: as a woman, an immigrant, a plant and cat mom, a didi (older sister) to many children, and someone who has spent much of her life fighting for justice in a world that makes that work necessary. I live with tension—between love and outrage, belonging and rejection—and I live and work at the edges, where systems, beliefs, cultures, and practices collide. I belong to land more than I do Nation states. Metaphorically, I understand myself as a being of the littoral zone—the place where land and sea meet. I inhabit this high-impact space, shaped by constant push and pull, while working to offer connection across difference and divides. In my professional life, I hold formal authority as an Executive Director and Board Chair while identifying strongly as anti-authoritarian. I live inside this tension and let it guide how I use power responsibly. I come to this conference curious about how we hold authority under pressure what the task is in this moment of rupture.
Sarah Rosenbaum, PhD (she/her)
Consultant
I am a clinical psychologist in private practice of therapy and organizational consulting/ coaching. I am a longtime member of the A.K. Rice Institute (past president and fellow) and the New York Center, and also a Group Relations International co-creator and senior training faculty member. I am an older mom and an oldest daughter taking care of my own younger mother. I have a child who is thriving and a child facing challenges. I am a Jewish woman married to a Japanese man, a US citizen with an immigrant spouse, a workaholic with a strong lazy streak, a matron still channeling my inner diva. So I feel most of my life is about edges meeting—or overlapping—or failing to meet at all. Group Relations is a space I love in part because of the opportunities to embody my multiple identities and also explore the edges of our collective experiences.
Zachary Gabriel Green, PhD (he/him)
Elder
I am Zachary Gabriel Green, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Practice at the University of San Diego. Trained as a clinical psychologist, I integrate depth psychology, group relations, and leadership development in teaching and global practice, bridging inner development and public leadership. I am a Fellow of AKRI and cofounder of Group Relations International. I formalized the elder role and have staffed and directed group relations conferences worldwide. I serve as founding faculty for RISE and Horizon, cofounder of Imago Global Grassroots, and elder of the Black InGenius Initiative. I have coached executives at the World Bank and consulted with UN and IMF entities. My scholarship includes the BART framework with René Molenkamp and The Denigrated Other with Marvin Skolnick. My work now centers on consciousness, spirituality, and the interdependence of humanity. Family remains my first school of leadership and source of meaning.
Betsy Hasegawa, EdD (she/her)
Elder
Irankarapte! I am Betsy Ann Keiko Hasegawa, of Ainu and Japanese heritage. For me, learning is primary. I live in the Pacific Northwest and grew up in a very diverse intentional community outside Chicago. As a ‘Co-op Kid’ I understood belonging as a winding pathway to co-create something so much bigger than each of us. As an adult, my calling has been to build community, encourage leadership, and promote healing to nurture expansive wisdom, growth, connection, and beauty. In group relations work, I am a Fellow of the AK Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems, a Co-creator with Group Relations International, and a member of GREX. I have been shaped by many people in my life and am delighted to be with you all on this journey. I honor all my Ancestors in my lineages, including group relations work. Iyairaykere! Thank you.
Seth Harkins, EdD (he/him)
Researcher
I am Seth Harkins. I am a white American of German-Irish ancestry. I am 79 years of age and live in Palatine, IL. I grew up in suburban Chicago. My mother was an elementary teacher and my father was a Universalist-Unitarian minister. My family is a social justice family. I am retired from a career in educational leadership, working in private practice as an educational systems consultant and researcher. My other identities include straight, husband, father, grandfather, and Twelve-Step practitioner. I have been involved with group relations since 1985. I am past president of the Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations and also past president of the Midwest Center for Group Relations. Additionally, I am a past board member of the A.K. Rice Institute. I find our democracy fragile, turbulent, polarized, and chaotic with root causes in oppressive, structural and systemic racism, with consequent socioeconomic and political inequities and inequalities. I hold a hopeful vision of a multicultural global democracy with the core values of human dignity of all, respect for common humanity, and guided by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The now and future require finding effective ways to collaborate and hold all of our collective parts.
Continuing Education
We expect that the conference will offer Continuing Education credits for mental health professionals (application pending). Please email Rebecca Abell at GRIeastGRC@gmail.com no later than June 1 if you are seeking CE credit. APC Board Certified Chaplains may apply all attended conference event hours toward their annual Continuing Education (CE) requirement, in accordance with BCCI guidelines.
Withdrawal Policy
Fees can only be refunded (less $100 administration charge) if a written notice of cancellation (via email) is received by 6 PM PDT on May 1, 2026.
Confidentiality
Staff will not report the behavior of any individual member to anyone outside the conference and the boards of the sponsoring organizations.
Special note
The conference is an educational endeavor and does not provide psychotherapy or sensitivity training. Although the experiential learning available can be stimulating and enriching, it can be emotionally stressful and confrontational as well. Thus, applicants who are ill or experiencing significant personal difficulties or are intensely emotionally triggered by views different from their own should carefully consider whether this is the right time to participate. Registration and conference membership may be refused or rescinded at the discretion of the conference staff.
ATTENDANCE
Conference Location
Endicott College, 376 Hale St., Beverly, MA 01915
Conference dates and times
June 15, 2026 (Monday) - Registration begins at 8:30 AM to 10:00 AM
June 20, 2026 (Saturday) - Conference ends at 1:00 PM
The conference will begin promptly at 10:30 AM on Monday and continue until 9 PM. Thereafter, days will begin at 8:30 AM and end by 9 PM on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and at 5:30 PM on Thursday (a final schedule will be provided at on-site registration). The conference is designed to be a single integrated educational experience with each component building upon the next. Individuals who know in advance that they are unable to attend all sessions are discouraged from applying. Anyone who must leave for any reason is requested to inform the administration.
ALL: ART WHERE THE EDGES MEET is a residential conference. Fees include dormitory housing beginning JUNE 15 at registration, and meals beginning at LUNCH on the same day. Dorm rooms can be reserved for the nights before (Sunday, June 14) and after (Saturday, June 20) the conference upon advanced request; an additional fee is required. A discounted commuter option is available for those who live locally.
Information about dorms and on-site registration will be sent by email after registration is complete and fees have been paid.
Members who do not complete in-person registration will be administratively withdrawn from the conference without a refund.
Registration fees for general membership
We are offering a sliding scale ($1,750 to $4,200) to promote financial accessibility to the conference. Our sliding scale is rooted in a commitment to shared responsibility and widening access across differences in financial privilege. We invite you to choose the highest amount you can afford while honoring your own needs. The Standard Rate reflects the estimated cost of offering the conference. The sliding scale applies only to General Membership (Praxis Building rates are detailed on the next page). Pricing structures may be updated as needed to support the sustainability of the conference. Please use the Sliding Scale Chart (please scroll further down) to help determine an appropriate price point.
Scholarships
If you cannot afford the lowest end of the sliding scale ($1,750), you may request a scholarship.
Scholarships may offer partial reductions below the sliding scale or, in some cases, a deeper subsidy depending on available funds. Requesting a scholarship will not impact your acceptance into the conference. To request a scholarship:
• Email Administration at GRIeastGRC@gmail.com
• Include a brief note describing your circumstances and the level of support you are requesting
• Scholarship requests are confidential and reviewed on a rolling basis
We will respond within 1 week with available options.
Commuter pricing
If you live locally in the Beverly, MA area or prefer to stay off-campus, you may choose the commuter option, which provides a $425 reduction in your registration fee. The commuter option includes lunch and dinner each full day of the conference. Breakfast is not provided. Participants are responsible for their own lodging and transportation to and from campus.
For questions or to request commuter pricing, please email Administration at GRIeastGRC@gmail.com.
LOCATION
REGISTRATION
Sliding Scale Chart:
Recommended rates for the sliding scale
* Basic Needs include food, housing, health care, and transportation.
** Expendable Income might mean you are able to buy coffee or tea at a shop, go to the movies or a concert, buy new clothes, books, and similar items each month, etc.
Additional fees
Fees for Praxis Building and for extra nights of lodging are not subject to sliding scale.
Praxis Building
Extra Lodging (one night)
Extra Lodging (two nights)
$3,250
$150
$300
$3,600
$150
$300
Early Bird
(by April 30th, 2026)
Early Bird
(after April 30th, 2026)
Hollis Heichemer
where the edges meet, 2025
oil on linen, 44 x 44 in.
We give profound thanks to Hollis Heichemer for allowing us to feature her painting which inspired the conference theme. You can find more of her artwork HERE
Brochure and Website Designer
We give our deepest gratitude to Carlo Hofilena whose continued dedication and brilliant artistry transform nuggets of ideas into stunning brochures and websites that link us to the world. You can contact Carlo at carlo@ccreatives.net
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