Director’s Update - Harry C. Katz
Harry C. Katz is the Director of the Scheinman Institute and the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining.
Our faculty and staff in Ithaca are looking forward to the return of students to campus in late August. We are preparing for in-person classroom instruction and other in-person campus activities.
The recent spread of the Delta variant has led the University to reimpose a requirement that masks be worn by all in all public spaces. In New York City we are planning a cautious re-start to in-person professional development programs and courses.
Associate Dean Avgar has announced that staff should gradually return to working on-site in our New York City and Buffalo outreach facilities given the central role that in-person interaction plays in all facets of our work. We have correspondingly delayed the full restart of our professional development in-person courses to mid-October.
At the same time, the ILR School is allowing staff to work at home a couple of days a week with the possibility of other work-at-home arrangements on a case-by-case basis. We are hopeful that the recent upsurge in the Delta variant will not require us to change those plans, but we remain vigilant in our efforts to ensure the health and safety of our staff and students.
Over the summer we have made much progress working with ecornell to develop “blended” certificate professional development certificates. New certificates are being offered this fall in three core areas: employee relations and EEO compliance, labor relations, and conflict management. Students in those certificate programs typically start their course work with asynchronous courses that provide basic material and then go on to cover more advanced and more interactive material through in-person or synchronous courses.
The Scheinman Institute is pleased to welcome its first post-doctoral fellows who arrive on campus this month, Aibak Hafeez and Lucas Clover Alcolea. Each will be teaching a conflict resolution related course in the fall and spring semesters on campus and also interacting with students and faculty in a variety of other ways. It is a pleasure to have two young scholars joining our team.