The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/ilr/page/4/)
Following in the footsteps of Cornell Tech, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations opened on Feb. 28 a new New York City outpost at an opening ceremony headlined by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-N.Y.).
Five months after Kevin Hallock stepped down from the helm of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations to lead the newly formed SC Johnson College of Business, the nation’s premier institution of labor education and research continues in its search for a new dean. While the search committee has voiced desire for student input, we fear the opinions of those most impacted by the management of this program will not be made a central concern. In fact, the Provost has made no commitments to transparency in this process, and has indicated to faculty members that he may be departing from well-established norms by not giving faculty and students the ability to comment on candidates being considered for the position. The Provost would require the select faculty members who meet the finalists to sign confidentiality agreements, agreeing to refrain from discussing potential candidates with their colleagues. The fact that the previous dean was so easily able to transition to leading an institution of management is indicative of the corporate bias of the search process to date.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is widely celebrated for his leadership during the Civil Rights Movement, but a new exhibit in Catherwood Library seeks to shed light on his lesser-known role in the history of labor rights.
On October 2, ILR Dean Kevin Hallock shocked the ILR community by sending out a mass e-mail announcing that he had sought and received an appointment as the Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, an apparent promotion over his position at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. As Dean Hallock goes on to what he and Cornell’s senior administration believe to be bigger and better things, he leaves behind an ILR school at an important crossroads. Will the ILR school be reduced to a niche business school and a stepping stone for promising business leaders or will it fulfill its potential to be the world’s leading institution for the study of work, workers and employment? The ILR school was founded in 1945 during an era of massive change in the American labor market. Enabled by New Deal legislation and fueled by a wave of post-depression left-wing militancy workers across the United States were joining unions by the millions and organizing bold and confrontational strikes to demand a bigger share of the economic fruits of their labor.
Fifteen sports industry professionals will speak in New York City at the ILR Sports Leadership Summit to discuss the opportunities and future of the industry. Speakers will include the current commissioner of the National Hockey League, the ESPN president and co-chair of Disney Media Networks and the co-head of CAA Sports.
Colvin, who joined the ILR school in 2008, assumed the position on Tuesday, Oct. 9. The University will begin searching candidates for the position immediately, Provost Michael Kotlikoff said.
Habemus decanum! Kevin Hallock, the current dean of the ILR school, has been announced as the next dean of the SC Johnson College of Business. While we — along with what often seems like a vast majority of students, and indeed, faculty — are still slightly confused as to what the College of Business actually is, we see reason to be hopeful of Hallock’s appointment. The College of Business is comprised of three rather disparate elements — the Johnson Graduate School of Management, the hotel school and the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management — and much of the controversy surrounding the business college’s creation dealt with each constituent school’s frustration at being subsumed into an amorphous, indistinct body. That frustration is certainly merited; each individual school prides itself on its unique flavor of education and expertise, and it certainly would be a shame if those flavors were overpowered by the bureaucracy of an umbrella college.
“This just became something that was ingrained in her, the equality of people. That all people should be treated with human dignity and with rights.”
This summer, 15 Cornell students embarked on a journey that reshaped their awareness of global health systems. In partnership with the non-governmental organization Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and the ILR School, students in the Global Health program worked on four to six week projects at SVYM sites that related to students’ career and service interests. In addition to projects, the students took classes at the Vivekananda Institute of Indian Studies in Mysore, India, where they learned about Indian culture, gender, labor relations and economics, language and yoga. Global Health student Simran Malhotra ’20 saw her project on digitizing patient history have a tangible impact despite organizational complications. “Because I was not working to publish something, I could work immediately with the NGO and actually saw them using my work,” Malhotra said. According to Malhotra, since the doctors in India see up to 50 patients in a day — such a high volume of visits means that doctors do not have time to go over treatment procedures with patients.
This past summer, a group of students from Cornell’s global health program and School of Industrial and Labor Relations traveled to Lusaka, Zambia for a research project that immersed them in the sociopolitical landscape of Southern Africa for eight weeks. The 12-person team consisting of 9 Global Health students and 3 ILR students interested in global health, worked with one another and with local organizations to study and present their findings on topics ranging from workforce barriers to new development policies. The program was initiated in 2013 in an effort for students not only to understand and appreciate the full scope of global health and labor relations, but also to apply their academic coursework in an environment surrounded by like-minded individuals and organizations. Each year, the focus of the research efforts differs depending on the current policies and events relevant to the community. Students had the opportunity to work with the Southern Africa Institute for Policy and Research, a research center in the Republic of Zambia that contributes to governance and policymaking through lecture series, fellowships, seminars and more.