A guitar-strumming former conscientious objector, not content to stage an arts festival, organizes a summer seminar where painters and poets, folkies and other musicians refine their crafts and ponder issues such as racism and intolerance. At Common Ground on the Hill, the lesson worth learning is that art can bring people together.

If all this sounds like a pipe dream from a bygone era, consider: Eight years after its debut at what was Western Maryland College, Common Ground is the model for a program planned for a university in New England and for another that has taken root in Scotland.

Walt Michael, who has put on the Common Ground programs since 1994, never doubted that his idea would play to a wide audience. Just look, he says, at how the historically downtrodden Scots took to a performance of African-American gospel.

"We find that cultures in conflict have commonality," Michael, 56, says. "Musicians always cross over lines. We're breaking down barriers.

The driving force behind Common Ground is an admirer of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Maryland native who in his college days volunteered to help the poor in the Appalachian Mountains and to register voters in Columbia, S.C. By the time he graduated from Western Maryland College in Westminster 1968 with a degree in English, he had given up his Army ROTC commission and had formally refused to go to war.

When he returned to his alma mater, determined to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas through art, he knew what Common Ground should - and shouldn't - be.

"We aren't really a repository for protest songs," he says. "The whole concept is getting traditional music and art out there."

Every summer, hundreds of artists gather at what is now McDaniel College for the two-week program - some stay for the entire session - for classes on blues guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, yoga, drawing and poetry, and other topics. Some are teachers, others students. Anyone interested is invited to take part in the courses, fees for which start at $65.

This year's Common Ground was the biggest, with about 350 students and 120 instructors.

Classes taught during the summer include "Latin American Songs of Revolution and Freedom," "Songs for Peace, Justice and Political Action" and "Native American Flute." Other courses deal with nonviolence as a means of resolving conflict and using culture as a tool for social change.

At the end of the program is a two-day arts festival. Headliners in the past have included folk legend Pete Seeger and Grammy-nominated blues artist Odetta.

Folk singer Tom Chapin, who performed in the summer, wrote a song, "Common Ground," with the lyrics:

Let your voice rejoice in what we've found

Let every heart take refuge in the sound

Feel the walls around us tremble

We will surely bring them down

And find ourselves on common ground.

Michael, who teaches music history at McDaniel, plays hammered dulcimer and guitar at the annual festival. Michael is preparing for the next Common Ground, and, as part of the group Sangmele, he recently performed at one of the three annual concerts he and his bandmates stage in addition to the main event.

Connected programs

He also is helping organize two more Common Ground programs.

The second edition of Common Ground at the Scottish Agricultural College is scheduled for August. Leading that production is Pete Heywood, 54, a guitarist and magazine publisher who was familiar with Common Ground through his long friendship with Michael.

Four years ago, Heywood and his wife, a singer of traditional Scottish ballads, made it to Common Ground in Westminster and got a taste of the cultural insights that the program offers.

"I was brought up with cowboys and Indians, but never heard the phrase 'Indian holocaust' or knew of that kind of history," Heywood says. "It's really fascinating. It got us to experience the diversity of culture in the states."

In August, a group of about 140 musicians and artists put on their version of Common Ground in Auchincruive, Scotland. Included in the entourage was an American gospel choir.

Heywood remembers a tour of Culzean Castle as poignant because it demonstrated the bonds between Scotland and America. The castle is where Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was given an apartment by the National Trust for Scotland for his leadership of Scottish troops during World War II.

Overwhelmed with emotion, the Americans, their Scottish hosts and even the custodians in the castle broke out into a spontaneous rendition of "We Shall Overcome."

"By way of the Church of England, the Scots had religion shoved down their throats," Michael says. "When something that sounds religious comes along, they say, 'Not so fast.' We had to talk about how gospel was a survival tool, how it helped African-Americans make it through slavery. The Scots learned that it was a different kind of religion that was as powerful as their unionist movement."

'Better global citizens'

Common Ground also is expanding to the University of Rhode Island in July, where the program is expected to draw at least a couple of hundred alumni, students, and local and regional participants.

"Common Ground is about making us better global citizens," says Melvin Wade, the director of the Multicultural Center at the University of Rhode Island.

A baby boomer rooted in civil rights activism, Wade, 59, attended Common Ground in Westminster for the first time this year. He says he was inspired.

"We're trying to develop spaces in which we can talk to each other about difficult problems, whether or not it's impending Iraq war or political parties or Trent Lott," he said. "Common Ground gives us hope."