Director's Update

Harry C. Katz is the Director of the Scheinman Institute and the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining.

Cornell University effectively has used widespread covid testing and enforced social distancing to operate its Ithaca campus this fall. Scheinman Institute faculty are doing their part by offering both in-person and virtual teaching. 

Katrina Nobles, for example, is teaching both an introductory and advanced student campus mediation course this fall. She is teaching a mix of ILR undergraduates, MILR, and law students in a virtual mode.  A core part of both courses is the practical engagement students have serving as mediators in cases referred by the Cornell judicial administrator, most of which involve campus code violations. The mediations have been taking place virtually as have synchronous class mediation training and de-brief discussion sessions.  Katrina reports that both she and the students have adapted well to virtual technology and the mediation clients have provided positive feedback. The advanced course deals with more complex cases and Katrina states that having worked with those students in-person in the past has helped develop the trust and relationships needed to foster positive experiences. 

I too have been teaching my basic undergraduate and MILR labor relations courses this semester virtually. I am making use of recorded lectures filmed when I taught this material two years ago. I have “flipped the classroom” with the benefit of those lectures. The twice-a-week synchronous zoom class sessions involve discussion of cases including frequent use of breakout groups. Even with 140 undergrad students and 62 MILRs (some of whom are zooming in from China and Korea and from various parts of the US) I’ve been able to sustain a high degree of interaction and interpersonal contact. I’ve had to learn some new “tricks” and in some cases have benefitted from helpful advice provided by tech savvy students (ILR’s tech support team also has been incredibly helpful).  I have been thinking about how to make use of things I have learned when I return to a more normal classroom setting.  As with so many other aspects of life during the pandemic, teaching in this environment has its challenges but also brings along some positive surprises.