News Digest
Highlights from ILR
The research of ILR faculty members Fran Blau and Larry Kahn is used by the Congressional Budget Office to help estimate the impact of tax changes on federal budget deficits. Changes in tax rates can affect labor force participation and work hours; in order to determine the effect of a change in tax rates on federal tax revenues, the induced changes in labor supply (if there are any) must be taken into account. The budget office uses research by Blau and Kahn as reported in a paper they entitled "Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women: 1980-2000." The paper was published in Journal of Labor Economics in 2007.
John Hausknecht, Pam Tolbert and Kevin Harris were honored at ILR's McPherson Honors and Awards banquet this spring. Hausknecht, assistant professor of Human Resource Studies, received the MacIntyre Award for Exemplary Teaching. Tolbert, professor of Organizational Behavior, received the Robert N. Stern Mentoring Award. Harris received the Outstanding Advisor Award for his work with the ILR Sports Management Club. Harris was also cited by Cornell's Student Activities Office for the Outstanding Advisor Award.
The Society for Human Resource Management has awarded $165,000 to the ILR School to study retention of older workers in the United States. Samuel Bacharach and Peter Bamberger are co-investigators of "Retirement eligible but not retiring: A longitudinal study of the organizational and job-related factors associated with the retention of older workers." The new retirement study is an outgrowth of many years of related research by the Smithers Institute. Bacharach is ILR's McKelvey-Grant professor and is also director of ILR's Institute for Workplace Studies and of the Smithers Institute. Bamberger, a graduate of ILR's doctoral, graduate and undergraduate programs, is a visiting scholar at the Smithers Institute.
ILR International Programs and the ESCP-EAP European School of Management have received a $235,000 grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange Foundation. The grant will support the dual-degree program sponsored by ILR and the Paris-based school, faculty and PhD exchanges, course development, and joint seminars. Sixty-eight university pairs applied for the three-year grant program. Sixteen were funded. The application was made by ILR International Programs Director Robin Remick and Professor Beatrice Collin of the European School of Management. The dual-degree program includes six ESCP-EAP and three ILR students this year.
Vernon Briggs testified at a public hearing of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in April in Washington, D.C., on "Illegal Immigration: the Impact on Wages and Employment of Black Americans." Briggs is professor emeritus of ILR's Human Resources Studies Department.
Barbara Viniar takes office as Chesapeake College's fifth president July 1. She will be the first woman president in the regional community college's 43-year history. Viniar currently serves as executive director for the Institute for Community College Development at Cornell University. The institute is located in the ILR School.
