News Digest
Highlights from ILR
An Institute of Workplace Studies Colloquium Series event featuring Sir Denis Bryan, president of the International Criminal Tribunal, can be seen in video online. Bryan spoke on the "Role of the Courts in Protecting and Preserving Human Rights" at the New York City event, co-sponsored by the Cornell Law School.
Three ILR Ph.D. degree recipients have received dissertation awards from the Labor and Employment Relations Association. Marco Hauptmeier Ph.D. '09 and Migwei Liu Ph.D. '08 shared the first prize. Ryan Lamare '04, '05, '08 received honorable mention. The annual competition is for post-doctoral students in industrial relations or related fields.
Stuart Basefsky and Art Wheaton will be speakers at a Eurofund international conference in Dublin, Ireland. "The Automotive Sector: How Can Social Dialogue Assist a Sector in Crisis (A Global Response?)" will be held Nov. 26-27. Wheaton is a speaker in a session called "Workplace Level Recessional Measures and Innovative Measures." Basefsky will speak in a session entitled "Addressing Impact of Crisis on Industrial Relations."
Ronald G. Ehrenberg has received appointments from the National Research Council and the U.S. Department of Education. He has been named to the National Research Council's panel on "Measuring Higher Education Productivity: Conceptual Framework and Data Needs" and the U.S Department of Education's Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance Policy Research Advisory Group.
Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI). He is also a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell and a university trustee.
The 2009 Jean T. McKelvey Neutral-in-Residence Program features Theodore St. Antoine, who will be at ILR Monday through Wednesday for a series of events with students and faculty. The neutral-in-residence program honors the memory of McKelvey, a founding member of ILR. Annually, the program brings a conflict resolution practitioner to Cornell to share expertise with students and faculty, inside and outside the classroom. Antoine is the James E. & Sarah A. Degan Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Michigan. More information about Antoine is available online.
Edward J. Lawler is chair of Cornell’s Strategic Plan Advisory Council. The council, comprised of eight university faculty members, will advise the university's president and provost. Lawler is ILR’s Martin P. Catherwood Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration Joseph Grasso will be a panelist in a National Campus Sustainability Day webcast from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 102 of Mann Library. The event is open to the public. For more information and to register visit the Society for College and University Planning web site. A discussion on sustainability issues will follow from 2:30 to 3 p.m. Wednesday in Room 100 of Mann Library. Grasso is chair of the National Association of College and University Business Officers' Committee on Sustainability and was involved in the development of Cornell's Climate Action Plan.
Assistant Professor Rebecca Givan outlined the political negotiations behind the U.S. Senate health care bill when she appeared on WHCU this week. Listen to the podcast (mp3).
As part of their research, the 25 students in ILR's Occupational Epidemiology course are examining the use of personal protective equipment such as gloves, goggles, earplugs and masks in the context of difficulty of use and required compliance. The H1N1 virus has given the class daily material on rates of disease transmission, measuring of severity, and risk assessment, according to Elizabeth Karns of the Department of Social Statistics. Karns teaches the class, which studies how the workplace can make people sick.
KC Wagner, ILR director of Workplace Issues, will facilitate a discussion for the Cornell community on violence in the workplace. It will be held from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 15 in Room 525 of the ILR Conference Center. Cornell faculty, staff, supervisors, student leaders and union representatives are invited to attend. The program, offered during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, will define domestic violence and discuss its impact on the work environment. It will also provide an overview of current research, roles and responsibilities of supervisors and unions, resources available for the Cornell community, and workplace and community best practices. Click here to register online or contact the Office of Workforce Diversity and Inclusion at: 255-5298 or e-mail wellbeing@cornell.edu.
Professor Lawrence M. Kahn is co-author, along with 19 other economists, of a brief in a sports law case scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the case, Kahn said, the National Football League is seeking a ruling that would give it single entity status for its core joint business decisions, immunizing it from anti-trust scrutiny. Kahn's co-authors, among others, included economists from California Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, New York University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago. The court agreed in June to hear the case. The parties have until Nov. 17 to complete the process of filing briefs. The brief can be read online (pdf).
Jefferson Cowie, associate professor of labor history , is one of four faculty members who led discussions of "The Grapes of Wrath" for 3,500 freshmen, transfer students and others during Cornell's ninth annual New Student Reading Project this semester. Cowie's reflections on John Steinbeck's 1939 novel can be seen on video at http://sandstone5.cit.cornell.edu/static/reading/ and at http://www.cornell.edu/video/details.cfm?vidID=497&display=preferences¶m=Cowie.