Spring 2008: Negotiators Current Projects
Harvard Labor Negotiations Case Study (full year project)
In June of 2007, Harvard University and the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers ratified a labor contract that was the result of one of the most ambitious implementations of interest-based bargaining (IBB) ever attempted in a union/management setting. Harvard Negotiators has been given a rare opportunity to see inside the negotiations and conduct a case study. Students with this project will work on a team to produce a case study that analyzes the negotiation. Work this semester will focus on conducting interviews, analyzing the dynamics of the negotiation, and drafting parts of the study.
MWI Negotiation Internship
MWI is a dispute resolution services and training firm specializing in improving our clients capacity to negotiate effectively and resolve difficult disputes. MWI seeks a Negotiation Programs Intern to work closely with the Director of Negotiation Programs on a variety of projects. The intern would contribute to the overall success of the department by working with the Director in developing, marketing, and implementing customized on-site and open-enrollment negotiation and conflict resolution programs with clients in the corporate, institutional, university and non-profit sectors. To learn more about the MWI internship, please visit www.mwi.org/interns.htm#negotiation.
Negotiators Consulting Project
The Negotiators Consulting project will advise Harvard students on real-life negotiation problems using the framework of Getting to Yes. At the beginning, Negotiators will advertise its services mainly to the Harvard undergraduate student community and will offer one or hour consulting sessions to help students prepare for wide variety of negotiations. Examples of negotiations might include: dealing with a landlord, a roommate, another student interest group, a clinical client, etc. Essentially, members of Negotiators will help the students conduct a thorough Seven Elements preparation so that they are able to have the most productive negotiation possible. Students can use the Consulting services on a one-time or an ongoing basis, depending on the nature of their negotiation.
Nepal Truth and Reconciliation Project
On July 17, 2007, the Nepalese Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction released a first draft of the Nepal Truth and Reconciliation Act for public comment. The draft drew sharp criticism on a number of key issues related to amnesty, reconciliation among victims and perpetrators, and the mandate, structure, procedures and independence of the TRC. Harvard Negotiators has the unique opportunity to work with Holland and Knight and the Appeal Foundation of the Nobel Peace Laureates to weigh in on this drafting process and help create an Act that incorporates community stakeholder interests and concerns.
Paulist Center Project
During the past 18 months teams of students from the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program have worked with the Paulist Center to develop methods for active listening, dispute resolution and pathways to reconciliation for alienated Catholics. One of the most positive effects of this work has been a gradual openness to this kind of dialogue and healing on the part of the institutional Church. The hierarchy and the ordained ministers of the Church have expressed interest in finding effective ways to speak among themselves. The students working on this project will help the Paulist Center created dialogue sessions for priests in the Boston area.
Past Projects: Fall 2007
Active Listening Skills of Crisis Negotiators
Examine the effectiveness of active listening on negotiators with the Metropolitan Area Crisis Negotiators Association. Students will listen to the actual crisis negotiation calls and help code them for active listening behaviors that were more or less effective, both before and after the negotiators receive an active listening training.
Northfield Energy Task Force
Help a Minnesota Energy Task Force assess opportunities to develop local energy efficiency and clean energy, including environmental and infrastructure initiatives. Harvard Negotiators will conduct a stakeholder analysis of the goals of the task force, including creating/conducting surveys and interviews for the various stakeholders and analyzing the data as well as developing a training for the Task Force in negotiation.
Negotiation Consultation
Advise Harvard students on real-life negotiation problems using the framework of Getting to Yes. Examples of negotiations might include: dealing with a landlord, a roommate, another student interest group, a clinical client, etc.
Williston Negotiation Competition
Working with Clinical Professor Bob Bordone, create or update and test a negotiation case for an annual competition in contract negotiation for first-year law students. Deciding to write a new case satisfies your 3L writing requirement.
Leipzig International Negotiation Challenge
The Leipzig International Negotiation Challenge is a new international negotiation competition run by the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, with assistance from Harvard Negotiators. Interested students will act as contact persons and will also be responsible for preparing negotiation scenarios for two rounds of the competition, either writing them anew, or adapting scenarios available from the PON clearinghouse.
Simulations
Ship Bumping Case
Vessels from the United States Navy equipped for electronic espionage recently entered Russian territorial waters and proceeded to within seven miles of the Russian naval installations at Sevastopol. Both governments now want to engage in negotiations in order to reduce the chance of such scenarios in the future. This case has a unique two-phase approach that is designed to give students experience with the principal-agent tension, followed by a debrief and training.
Global Management of Organochlorines
The Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has decided to gather a Working Group composed of representatives from eight countries, as well as four representatives from various relevant non-governmental organizations to produce a draft of an international environmental treaty. This simulation is an intensive, day-long multilateral simulation that involves large numbers of players (13-26 people representing 13 sides) with a complex mix of interests. Participants will learn the basics of multilateral negotiation, including coalition-building, group drafting, working in a multinational environment, and working to meet a deadline in a consensus-based situation.
2005- 2007
Center for Research on Women at Wellesley
Students worked with Monica McNamara, a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley and a consultant who works in the Spring Negotiation Workshop. Students helped to design and deliver a program to integrate negotiation and decision making skills in a special curriculum for middle school girls that increases their awareness of issues related to body image and eating disorders. The curriculum included leassons on assertion and self-agency techniques for women.
Williston Competition
At the request of HLS Dean of Students Ellen Cosgrove and Bob Bordone, the Harvard Negotiators agreed to organize, supervise, and judge the Williston Competition. Fifty-four first-year students participated in the
competition.
PIIPA
The Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors http://www.piipa.org/ asked the Harvard Negotiators to help them launch an international dispute resolution program aimed at resolving international intellectual property related disputes (usually involving a group in a developing country). The Harvard Negotiators conducted extensive research and produced a 60-page report proposing a system to deal with cross-cultural disputes.
Mapleton Ohio School District
Harvard Negotiators provided critical negotiation/mediation advice to parties involved in a heated dispute over school funding in the Mapleton School District in Ohio, arising subsequent to the 2002 DeRolph v. State decision of the Ohio Supreme Court. They drafted an editorial on behalf of the school board that was published in the local Maple competition. The team of students working on this project was particularly proud of the real contribution they made to facilitate a problem solving orientation to the conflict. Several students received personal phone calls and letters of thanks from parents, school board members, and local ministers in the community.
Nepal Project
Led by an LL.M. in the class of 2006 with connections to officials in Nepal's democratic movement, a number of students researched white papers to be used by Nepalese government officials in negotiations to persuade the monarchy in Nepal to restore Parliament and a constitutional democracy.
Se San Project
Working in conjunction with students in the Advocates for Human Rights, several Negotiators began a project involving a Vietnamese dam that is causing serious downstream impacts on indigenous populations in Cambodia. The goals of this project included brainstorming ways to get the relevant stakeholders to the negotiation table and how to sequence and structure the negotiation in a way that might end the continued pollution of the river and the deleterious effects on the indigenous population.
Strong Women, Strong Girls Workshop Design
During the spring semester several Harvard Negotiators worked with the organization Strong Women, Strong Girls to deliver a one-day training to women who serve as mentors for this program. Strong Women, Strong Girls is a non-profit organization that finds mentors for at-risk teenage girls in inner cities. The program developed and taught by Harvard Negotiators helped equip the mentors with negotiation skills to better communicate with the girls they mentor, especially when they are in times of conflict and crisis.
Initiative for Peace
During the summer of 2006, Greek and Turkish Cypriot students from Cypress traveled to the Harvard College campus to participate in a series of workshops on peace building. The Harvard Negotiators worked with the undergraduate student organizers to design and develop several training programs for the event.
Abraham Path Initiative
Members of Harvard Negotiators worked with the Abraham Path Initiative at the Program on Negotiation to research issues related to a peace-building project to establish an international Middle Eastern route retracing the steps of the prophet Abraham.
Pan American Institutions
Negotiators worked with author and historian Elizabeth Borgwardt on a book project on the development of Pan American institutions.
U. of Milwaukee Peace Studies Program
Members of Harvard Negotiators assisted The Peace Studies Program and the Brandeis Co-Existence Initiative on non-violent ways of addressing state-level conflict.
Legal Aid University
Negotiators assisted with curriculum development for Legal Aid University, which provides online, multi-week negotiation workshops for legal aid attorneys throughout the country.