ILR Giving Priorities and Objectives
Cornell University is world-renowned for its excellence in teaching and research. ILR students expect and desire no less from the ILR School. Excellence, however, comes at a price. Consistent support is vital to the quality of the ILR School.
To maintain ILR's strength and build on more than 60 years of success, ILR has established key priorities and funding objectives. Their focus includes improving the ILR undergraduate experience, strengthening ILR's professional masters programs, and contributing to faculty excellence. Your support can help stabilize tuition costs and address funding shortfalls.
Cornell Fund for ILR
Unrestricted annual support will always be a priority for ILR. Gifts at any level are appreciated. These funds are used at the discretion of the Dean. Please remember to check the ILR box on the University's pledge card.
Fund for Faculty Excellence (FFE)
This endowment fund, started in 2000, is designed to provide the dean discretionary funds for support, retention, and recruitment of faculty. This fund has already been pivotal in our efforts to recruit new faculty and to retain outstanding faculty. Our goal is to build a $5 million endowment over the next several years. Any amount can be contributed.
International/Global Initiatives
An ongoing initiative at ILR over the past two years has been an effort to better understand and organize the work that is being done by faculty in the international arena, as well as focus future international programs and outreach. The School's International Initiatives Committee is chaired by Associate Professor Maria Cook and has representatives from every academic department of the School, both resident and extension. A direct result of this work has been recent academic alliances with the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin, Ireland. Specifics about these new opportunities and the rest of the work of the Committee can be found at their website. Increasing the resources available for international initiatives is a fund raising priority for ILR.
Diversity
ILR continues to strive to provide the best learning environment possible for our students. In an effort to have our student population more representative of society as a whole, as well as to provide a more welcoming and stimulating environment for our academic community, the School has focused recruiting efforts on outstanding minority candidates who wish study the social sciences. Concurrently, more attention has been paid to programming for students of color, once they have matriculated. Expanding support for this initiative is a fund raising priority for the School. The Dean's Advisory Council has taken a strong interest in the area and has provided for an initial endowment in support of diversity initiatives.
MILR Fellowships
The two-year Master of Industrial and Labor Relations (MILR) degree program provides a broad-based foundation with a specific, intense focus on the interaction between people and organizations in the workplace. The MILR is the top degree program in the area of human resources and labor relations. There's a strong general business component to courses, but the emphasis is on the interrelationship between people and the workplace, whether that's a small service business, a not-for-profit museum, a large and influential labor union, or a Fortune 200 corporation. By increasing the amount of fellowship support available to these future leaders, ILR will continue to attract outstanding students to this program.
Faculty Research
The School needs the capacity to jump-start, seed, and nurture selected research areas. One area that warrants expansion is the international/global studies of employment relations; another is conflict, negotiation, and dispute resolution, which is at the very heart of the ILR School's mission. Any amount can be contributed.
Student Research
We have established a Research Fellows Program for undergraduates who are conducting research with a faculty member. The students receive semester awards with a small stipend ($1,000) and are subject to a competitive review process. Our goal is to create an endowment for this program and increase the number of undergraduate fellowships to 12.
For more details please contact: Christopher Crooker, ILR Alumni Affairs and Development, 309 Ives Hall, (607) 255-5827, cec23@cornell.edu.