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"A Pioneer"

Class valedictorian, student body president, debate champion at Edmond High School in Oklahoma.

Recipient, Ph.D. degree in economics from Columbia University.

Director of ILR Extension's first office in Buffalo, then its New York City office, then its Extension program.

Advocate for women and for civil rights.

Sixty-two-year member of the ILR faculty.

That is a fraction of Lois Spier Gray's record, recounted when the Northeast Labor Women's Summer School was dedicated in her honor.

The school, located at Stony Brook University, was dedicated to ILR's Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor Emerita of Labor Management Relations.

"We give a collective and heartfelt thank you for her vision, energy, commitment, good humor and dedication," said Claudia Shacter de Chaubert during the August ceremony on Long Island.

"She has mentored countless young women … and has inspired many more," said de Chaubert, a staff representative of New York State United Teachers who spoke on behalf of the summer school instructors and planning committee.

"A pioneer in workers' education," de Chaubert said, Gray founded the summer school in 1975 with Barbara Wertheimer, a colleague at ILR and director of the Institute on Women and Work.

Gray, who works out of ILR's New York City office, has served for four decades on the school’s planning committee and as a workshop teacher.

She has also shared her fashion sense.

During the dedication at Stony Brook, de Chaubert closed her remarks with a nod to Gray's "fabulous wardrobe, including her message t-shirts and incredible jewelry, which add color, style and inspiration" to school events.

The summer school is sponsored by the United Association for Labor Education and has spun off schools in other regions of the United States and in Canada.

Thousands of rank-and-file workers and other women have attended the schools. More information about the schools and an interview with Gray can be seen at http://uale.org/union-womens-summer-schools.

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