In December 2017, Texas A&M University School of Law professors Cynthia Alkon, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Nancy Welsh, Director of the Aggie Dispute Resolution Program; and Charlotte Ku, Global Programs Director, joined a group of 12 professors from across the nation for a Dispute Resolution Faculty Seminar in Israel as part of Academic Partners for Peace.

Led and organized by Professor Andrea Schneider of Marquette University School of Law, the group​ of U.S. dispute resolution scholars traveled for one week to Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

During the program, professors met with Israeli officials:

• former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni,
• former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak,
• former Supreme Court President Asher Grunis,
• former Knesset member Dalia Rabin (who is also the daughter of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin),
• Tal Becker, Principal Deputy Legal Adviser at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The trip took the group not only to the cities mentioned, but also to the Sea of Galilee, Golan Heights and the border with Syria, and the Dead Sea area including the caves of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

The trip provided the opportunity for the Texas A&M faculty to undertake advance preparations for the 2018 Global Lawyering Field Study Course "Intro to Isreal: Water and Natural Resource Management and Dispute Resolution" led by Professors Nancy Welsh and Gabriel Eckstein. Aggie Law students will be visiting Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem in May.

The field study students will be directed to consider similarities and ties of Israeli water and natural resource management enterprises to Texas initiatives in these areas.