Justin Brothers

As a barista and eventual manager of Cafenation, my primary goal and focus was building long-term customer relationships rooted in hospitality and care, helping to foster a third-space café culture. I am proud to say that I was able to connect with many customers who are now friends. This work has greatly impacted my view of community, my understanding of the impact that a communal space can have on the members of that community, and helped to solidify Cafenation's integral place in Brighton.

• Co-led daily operations, ensuring the opening and closing of the café, staff training for all staff, quality control, and inventory management for a high-volume neighborhood café, providing a service for over a hundred customers per day.
• Researched, recommended, and spearheaded Cafenation’s participation in the Brighton Farmers Market, coordinating logistics with community planners and organizers, and representing the business at the community booth; engaged with other vendors, and built lasting relationships with the community.

• Managed the logistical execution of dozens of academic and public-facing events for groups ranging in size from five or six to several dozen, and timespans from an hour to all-day retreats.
• Facilitated monthly “Talking Circle” dialogue spaces for the School of Theology community, with the goal of contributing to community healing practices, often in rapid response to current affairs, e.g., contentious elections, global and local conflicts, or simply daily stressors. These Talking Circles contributed to program growth and engagement with the program.
• Supported vision implementation across institutional partners through strategic planning and communications, including the implementation of the work I completed as Research Coordinator for the program the previous year.
• Created the Judith Oleson Library, creating and implementing an organizational system for both physical texts and an online check-out system to utilize a donation of over 300 texts.

• Conducted a national landscape analysis of peace and conflict transformation programs, identifying strategic opportunities for growth, collaborating with team members and superiors
• Advocated successfully for a new community-focused contextual education model, now in pilot implementation, with the goal of creating hands-on experiences for student interns to support the education they received in courses associated with the program
• Presented research findings to Boston University School of Theology’s leadership team including the Dean's and program oversight committee, leading to changes I would see implemented in my time as Program Coordinator the following year