Team led by Program on Dispute Resolution Director Katrina Lee awarded $250,000 grant from AAA-ICDR Foundation

The American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution Foundation (AAA-ICDR) has awarded a $250,000 grant to support a project led by Moritz College of Law Professor Katrina Lee (Principal Investigator), Department of English Professor Simone Drake (Co-Investigator), and Department of African American and African Studies Professor Judson Jeffries (Co-Investigator). The project is titled Improving Internal Police Negotiation and Communication Tools to Improve Police-Civilian Interaction. The project’s focus is on assessing internal climate dynamics and social relations within the Columbus Division of Police and developing culturally-informed negotiation training modules that will help to improve internal communication, diverse recruiting, retention, and police-civilian interactions.

Professor Lee, Director of the College of Law’s Program on Dispute Resolution, was excited to receive the good news: “Our project team is honored and delighted to have this grant from the AAA-ICDR Foundation. Many thanks to my colleagues Carl Smallwood and Bill Froehlich of the Divided Community Project for their critical contributions to the grant proposal effort. I am thrilled that our team can move forward with this work, which we hope can make a meaningful impact on internal conversations at the Columbus Division of Police and ultimately police-civilian interactions.” 

The Program on Dispute Resolution is ranked No. 1 in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report and is Ohio State’s highest ranked specialty. The program emphasizes the value of designing dispute resolution systems tailored to the needs of public and private institutions, including the award-winning, iterative Divided Community Project.