Local professor fights against violence

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A local professor takes a unique approach to fighting violence, whether she's in court or inside the ACI.

Johnson and Wales Associate Professor Mari Dias’s choice is using all forms of art to help local victims and the convicted.

She is a CASA court appointed advisor for some of the youngest children in family court. The Street Workers were the subject of one of her student-produced documentaries. Dias used theatre as a tool of an inner-city program for children, and a creative aging program for the elderly.

She also runs a Changing Lives through Literature program at the ACI.

“I always tell my students that they are human beings,” Dias said. “They are not their crimes.”

There was no greater test than a chance collision between two of those “worlds”.

At a Take Back the Night march against domestic violence, she found herself walking beside a man, holding the effigy of his murdered daughter. The killers name was a shock.

“I knew him,” Dias said. “He was in my class. Here was a man who's crying for the loss of his daughter from a killing that had no reason behind it, but the killer was in my class.”

Dias said she bonded with the man and shared stories with him.

“I was so torn,” Dias said.

However, she remains faithful to a philosophy, one that she wears on her wrist.

“It is Gandhi’s phrase that says ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world,’” Dias said.

Dias believes in order to efficiently fight violence, you need to work for change on both sides.

“You're going to not only have to work with the victims and the children, you have to work with the perpetrators,” Dias said.

Many of her Johnson and Wales students continue to work towards her goals, even after grades are in.

“They'll call and say what are you involved in now. Can we do something?” Dias said.

With work that sometimes takes up entire days and that adds up to 80-plus hour work weeks, Professor Dias said her greatest skill may be the art of time management.