About ILR

Students meeting outside the ILR School

Our Vision

The ILR School of Cornell University is the leading college of the applied social sciences focusing on work, employment, and labor policy issues and practices of national and international significance.

Our Mission

The ILR School advances the world of work through teaching, research and outreach. As a land-grant college, we generate and disseminate leading-edge knowledge to solve human problems, manage and resolve conflict, and establish best practices in the workplace, and to inform government policy.

ILR's mission is to prepare leaders, inform national and international employment and labor policy, and improve working lives. The school offers undergraduate and graduate education as well as career-long learning for professionals.

Our History

Founded in 1945 as the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the ILR School today is advancing the world of work through teaching, research and outreach. ILR’s mission is to prepare leaders, inform national and international employment and labor policy, and improve working lives, but as the world of work evolves, the school’s focus broadens to keep pace with that change.

ILR studies many areas that shape the working world and contribute to an organization’s success in a global economy. These include human resource management; labor-management relations; labor economics; organizational behavior; international and comparative labor; labor relations, labor law and history; conflict resolution; management development; diversity management; employment and disability; and social statistics.

An ILR education is grounded in the social sciences. Students and faculty explore and gain an understanding of human behavior through the lens of the workplace. Students also learn how organizations work and how they fit into the larger society and economy. As a result, they acquire knowledge and skills that help them to solve problems on-the-job and to build and manage productive work relationships. An ILR education, for students and professionals, is practical and applied.

ILR has more full-time faculty involved in teaching and research that spans the broad range of work and employment disciplines than any other educational institution of its kind. Its Martin P.Catherwood Library is regarded as the most comprehensive source of information in North America on work, employment and labor issues.