Several years ago Chris Honeyman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider, along with dozens of friends and colleagues, daringly conspired to capture the best negotiation ideas, frameworks, and techniques from a wide-ranging set of academic disciplines. Their project began with a series of conferences and culminated in the publication of The Negotiator's Fieldbook in 2006. That nearly eight-hundred-page volume is now an essential reference for serious scholars and practitioners alike.
More recently, many of the same contributors set out on an equally ambitious venture, namely, to stimulate and document what they call “the second generation of global negotiation education.” In a world where the economy has been rapidly globalizing — and where conflict is rife — they challenged the notion that traditional American pedagogy necessarily meets the needs of individuals and organizations elsewhere. (Indeed, they wondered out loud whether even at home that model has gotten rather long in the tooth.)
Last spring, Hamline University School of Law, in cooperation with the JAMS Foundation and ADR Center Italy, convened a four-day conference in Rome that attracted university teachers and private trainers from more than a score of different countries. The setting and time of year was matchless, as was the collegiality, but the work was hard, as people good-naturedly challenged one another on what they teach and how their students learn.
Alas, the printed page cannot do justice to the atmosphere. Primavera in Roma simply has to be experienced firsthand, as does the good company of those colleagues who were fortunate enough to be there last year. Thanks, however, to their ongoing work, in particular to the leadership of Chris Honeyman, Jim Coben, and Giuseppe De Palo, we are able to present here a rich sampling of the new ideas and approaches that were generated in that session. Chris, Jim, and Giuseppe have prepared an introduction to the special section that comprises most of this issue. It sketches how the various contributions complement one another. They also describe their larger project that, among other things, will soon yield a book.
As a result, I'll limit myself to three broader comments here. First and foremost, of course, is an expression of thanks to their entire crew for producing such a diverse and stimulating set of papers. I say that from my editorial perch, but also on behalf of fellow teachers and our many students, all of whom stand to benefit from this work.
Second, in reading the articles, I was repeatedly reminded about how substance and process are inextricably intertwined in our teaching. Stances and techniques that are appropriate for some topics may not be right for other material — or for other kinds of students, for that matter. While the focus here is on pedagogy, many of the same substantive negotiation issues that were explored in the Fieldbook resurface here, though cast in a new light.
Finally, the venture behind these contributions nicely complements and enriches work currently being undertaken at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School under the umbrella of “Negotiation Pedagogy@PON (NP@PON).” That initiative, cochaired by Larry Susskind, Melissa Manwaring, and me, has sponsored both small workshops and larger conferences. Indeed, within weeks of the arrival of this issue on your doorstep, we will welcome teachers from a wide range of fields to examine mediation pedagogy in hopes of generating new tools and approaches in that particular field.
While some of us are of an age that we cannot claim “second generation” status, we applaud the hopeful audacity of Chris, Jim, Giuseppe and their colleagues who with good reason believe that we all can become more effective — and fulfilled — in our teaching.
