More Cooperation Among Grad Schools

To the editors:

I commend Robert Pozen’s call for increased cooperation and interdisciplinary collaboration between Harvard’s schools of Law and Business (Op-ed, “Building a Bridge Over the River,” Sept. 16). Indeed, I wonder why he did not take his argument even farther.

While there clearly exist natural synergies between the Law and Business Schools, equally valuable cross-collaborations are possible between these schools and Harvard’s other professional schools (i.e. the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Education, the Divinity School).

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON) represents the kind of interdisciplinary research program that embraces and involves faculties and students from across the University. The central administration should look to programs like PON as models for innovative ways to break down traditional barriers between the schools. Though Pozen cites a recent seminar on corporate governance as the only notable exception to the general lack of interdisciplinary cooperation and courses between HLS and HBS, I have offered a research seminar on negotiation and dispute resolution with faculty from KSG and HBS since 1998. The popularity of this course (there are always auditors who are sitting on the floor, along the window sill, and anywhere they can get a space) speaks to the critical need for more course offerings that integrate different research traditions and teaching pedagogies.

Lawyers, businesspeople, government officials, educators, and religious leaders of the 21st Century will need cross-cutting skills drawn from a range of disciplines. Harvard has a responsibility to ensure that its professional schools prepare students adequately to meet this leadership challenge by faciliating interdisciplinary courses and dialogue across its various schools.

ROBERT C. BORDONE

Sept. 16, 2003

The writer is Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and Deputy Director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project.