For 30 years, faculty member David King has taught Harvard students how Congress works

Senior Lecturer in Public Policy David King has taught DPI-120, “The U.S. Congress and Law Making,” for three decades. Students come from across Harvard to learn how Congress works and participate in immersive simulations. Inspired by the experience, many students go on to run for office—even if that wasn’t something they originally planned. With his retirement this summer, King reflects on the influential course. We caught up with him for a brief conversation.

Q: Can you tell me about the origins of your course on Congress? 

I wanted to build on the experience of academic work—head learning—and integrate it with gut learning. I came to the School to teach in the MPP core and had the skeletal outlines of a course. As a young academic with a freshly minted PhD, my instinct was to teach a course that was more scholarly. But I discovered that what worked really well were simulations. 

Q: How did you design the course? 

I’ve built the course around a series of specific lessons about how to be successful in a legislature. That’s obviously knowing the rules and procedures, but a huge part of it is how to behave, how to listen, how to compromise, how to craft policy, and how to anticipate. You do that by actually experiencing it. So, for the simulation everybody in the course will take on certain roles, either as a legislator, a lobbyist, or a reporter. The simulation is designed to be as realistic as humanly possible. It’s become a model used around the country. Versions of it are used at West Point. 

An important part is creating an environment in the classroom where people can really be themselves. I try to create an environment where people trust each other, and I try to allow for that trust to be built internally. 

It’s disappointing that Congress is so dysfunctional right now. This course is trying to teach people how to be successful in the legislature without recreating the dysfunction that they see all around them. 

Q: Are there other courses like yours on Congress? 

This is the only course like this that I am aware of. I know that others at different universities have taken the syllabus and built on it. But it’s a daring thing for junior political scientists to do. If you’re a junior political scientist right now, you’re expected to do an academic course, not to go off into “practitioner la-la land.” It’s really sui generis, meant for a place like the Kennedy School. Lots of our alumni of this program have gone on to work on Capitol Hill. I was texting the other day with Dan Crenshaw MPA 2017 [a U.S. Representative for Texas], who took the Congress course. 

Q: Does this course change people’s trajectories? 

A few years ago, I had a student from the Harvard Graduate School of Education who thought she would try the course out during shopping days. A roommate or friend who was also at the HGSE tagged along with her. Her name was Emily Cain, and she had never thought about politics before. She got interested, took the class, got involved, and did really well. It changed her life and her career trajectory. When she graduated, instead of going back to education, she went into politics. She lives in Orono, Maine, and ran for the state legislature. Then she became the speaker of the House. She became the Democratic Party leader in Maine and ultimately ran for Congress. Although she lost that race, she went on to run EMILY’S List afterward.