PSA-Harvard Begin 2015/2016 Program

After a successful pilot of the 2014 PSA-Harvard negotiation training series, the joint effort is launching once again, with new elements and a deeper focus on skills application. The PSA-Harvard Negotiation Program will run from October 2015 to June 2016.

Through a series of lectures and bipartisan workshops, instructors from the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School will work alongside PSA to continue breaking new ground, training more effective negotiators on Capitol Hill.

In 2014, the program focused on classroom instruction with an emphasis on developing vocabulary and learning the fundamental principles of negotiation. This time around, students are in the driver’s seat as the emphasis shifts to identifying and addressing their individual strengths and weaknesses. Through bipartisan small group negotiations, students will begin to apply lessons from classroom instruction to substantive policy issues. This unique approach offers students opportunities to gain a greater facility with the tools and concepts of the art of negotiation.

During this session, the approach is more deliberative and proactive, helping students recognize areas for personal improvement as a negotiator. The program aims to help students learn from, as well as instruct, each other with the goal of making negotiation skills more natural and automatic when opportunities for dealmaking arise.