Fisher Negotiates Course for Last Time

Williston Professor of Law Roger Fisher '43 knows how to help people get along.

And for just one more semester, he'll be teaching Harvard undergraduates the secret.

The best-selling author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving, now in its 20th edition and published in 18 languages, Fisher is retiring in May due to a university policy that requires faculty to step down at age 70.

His course, a general education elective titled "Coping With International Conflict", is being offered this semester for the last time under his instruction. Fisher calls the class a workshop in negotiation.

In that field, Fisher is the expert.

From El Salvador to South Africa to Iran, Fisher has travelled the globe to teach his negotiation techniques to world leaders with hefty problems on their hands. Students in the course learn to apply his methods to mediating complex international disputes.

According to Fisher, much of what he teaches is grounded in simple common sense.

"So many courses at a university are courses `about something', and yet what we need are skills, and the skill to think clearly and to relate thinking to doing", he said in an interview yesterday.

"I hope at least that these students will not only enjoy it but become ever more committed to doing something, not just be spectators," he added.

For Fisher, the spectating ended in 1958, when he first came to teach at Harvard. Since then, as director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, he has led countless workshops and seminars worldwide, often at the invitation of foreign governments.

In the late 1970s, Fisher helped the Carter administration design a formula for the landmark Camp David Accord which made peace between Israel and Egypt. Later, he assisted in negotiations with the government of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.

More recently, Fisher has lectured to leaders of the African National Congress and the South African government on how to resolve their long-standing differences.

"Having the [South African] foreign minister pretend he was the member of a Black squatter group in role reversal was fun," he said.

And in war-torn El Salvador, Fisher led separate negotiation workshops to end bitter feuding between FMLN guerrilla leaders and the government of Alfredo Cristiani.

"When they reached agreement, they called me up and wanted me to come down to Mexico for the signing [of a cease-fire treaty]," he said.

Clearly Fisher is good at what he does. But ask him the secret of his success, and he remains modest.

"It's not that I did it," he said. "You're helping people deal with their differences better. And the fact that I'm not an official makes it useful. I'm not threatening. I'm not Henry Kissinger telling them what to do."

After studying his techniques, students who do well in Fisher's class can often watch their own suggestions in action. In the past, student written solutions for real-life conflicts have been considered by the governments of Yugoslavia, Germany and the United States.

But according to Fisher, the techniques are notlimited to global politics.

"I had one student tell me he wasn't sure howmuch good it did in the world, but it sure helpedhim with his roommate and his family," Fishersaid

But according to Fisher, the techniques are notlimited to global politics.

"I had one student tell me he wasn't sure howmuch good it did in the world, but it sure helpedhim with his roommate and his family," Fishersaid