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Newsletter of the MHRLR Program - Fall 2005Lurie CeremonyThanks to all who attended the 18th Annual Lurie Ceremony on September 26th. Deans Meadows and Prasad awarded the prizes.This year Marci Fischer was awarded the Melvin Lurie Memorial Prize. She joins the ranks of our other outstanding graduates. The DaimlerChrysler Kenosha Engine Plant and UAW Local 72 received the 8th Melvin Lurie Labor-Management Cooperation prize. In the 1980s the assembly plant in Kenosha closed leaving the remaining engine plant wondering how to protect production and jobs. Out of this adversity grew the beginnings of an amazing cooperative effort. The introduction of the new engine line at the plant in 2002 marked more that $1 billion of investment in the plant since that early time. In fact the new assembly line serves as a testament to their cooperative efforts. Labor and management worked together on all aspects of implementing the assembly line. Indeed, using the UAW itself to install the line, rather than outside contractors, has been credited with saving the company nearly $10 million. A textbook case of cooperation, written up in scholarly articles, the partners have many years of success to look back upon and we were pleased to recognize their success. MHRLR Faculty NewsProf. Keith Bender, who many of you will remember from Industrial and Labor Relations, received some national attention recently for his research. As part of a research grant received from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Prof. Bender studied the determinants of retirees' satisfaction in retirement. He found that retirees prefer certainty in their retirement income; retirees with defined benefit pension plans are more likely to report being "very satisfied" in retirement than those retirees with defined contribution or 401K type retirement plans.John Heywood reports a whirlwind trip to Seoul Korea this fall. He spoke on how labor market institutions in Korea might be reformed to allow for more successful use of performance pay. Such pay remains a relative rarity in that dynamic economy. Prof. Al Levy's past year has been taken up by public employment questions in a time of budgetary limitations, an usually aggressive picketing campaign of a private employer, and the rise of interest in Health Savings Accounts coupled with High Deductible Health Plans. The latter innovation has taken hold in a number of areas where unions and management have sought ways to contain health insurance costs by a combination of controls over premiums and an immediate way for employees to have some real voice in what they pay for (and save on) health care. Carolyn "Kelly" Ottman who you may well remember from her Leadership, Teambuilding and Effective Management class, received the 2005 UWM Academic Staff Award for outstanding Teaching. This fits nicely with her national reputation on teaching methodologies. Those of you who took Prof. Belle Ragin's Managing Diversity or Training and Development courses will not be surprised that she received the 2005 UWM Alumni Association Award for Teaching Excellence last May. Nancy Burrell, who many of you will remember from your mediation courses, received the Dick Ringler Distinguished Peace Educator Award on November 4th from the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies for continued work with students and educators of the Milwaukee Public Schools in conflict management training. We Want to Include YouIn 1996, the program compiled an alumni directory listing the names, addresses and occupations of the graduates to that point. It proved a useful tool for networking and for putting current students in touch with past graduates. Now too old to be of use, we want to replace it with an updated version. We hope the 2006 edition will include you! Send us your business card or a short note giving us details. We'll send everyone who responds a copy of the updated directory. We will be mailing a letter with details early next year. Be prepared for us give a call if we do not hear from you. We'd like to make this as complete as possible. We appreciate your help.2004-2005 GraduatesCongratulations to the following 22 new MHRLR alumni:December 2004: Greer Bloedorn, Shelley Boehm, Cheryl Calo, Deborah Craft-Marks, Marcy Fischer, Matthew Groh, Jamie Gower, Darren Johnson, Jennifer Schmidt, Debra Schwartz, Mark Winters May 2005: Nicole Jawort, Melissa Kleinmaus, Jennifer Klimstra, Claudia Krepsky, Jennifer Lyon, Craig Pielmeier, Louis (Chuck) Schumacher, Lyn Tschanz, Steve Hansen (MILR) August 2005: Craig Paulson, Janelle Prowant, Theodore Jackovich Good luck and best wishes! Friends, Alumni and Student NewsMarc Winters changed jobs at Milwaukee Area Technical College, to Coordinator, Employee Relations. His position now largely entails staffing responsibilities.Scott Hoffland started as an Adjunct at Cardinal Stritch University teaching in the College of Business. Some of the courses he has taught include Staffing, Human Resource Management, Management and Leadership. Jason Pruitt is working at Carthage College as the Associate Director of Career Services. He will be teaching his first class this J-Term, Career Planning and Preparation at Carthage. Deborah Craft-Marks recently took a position with Robert W. Baird & company. Joy Hargons reports that she is currently working as a Senior Labor Relations Representative for the State of Minnesota Department of Transportation as well as completing her law degree this December. Her latest challenge revolves around deciding which employees performed critical core functions and therefore could continue working during a state government shutdown. Directors CornerThe year has been a good one for us here on the East Side of Milwaukee. We completed the final steps in a thorough review of the program with the high point being an earlier external examination by two leading scholars, John Fossum from the University of Minnesota and Adrian Eaton from Rutgers University. While they presented a detailed evaluation, they had a very favorable general impression. They found MHRLR "to be a well-run degree with a curriculum that is consistent with what is typically included in competitive programs." They emphasized that the faculty is "well-trained" and shows "a strong degree of commitment to the program." They felt "the structure and delivery of student services is excellent." It is always nice to hear good things!Ellen Bravo successfully offered her new course on family friendly workplaces to strong reviews last spring. The role workplaces should take in helping employees balance work and family remains an area of profound interest to all involved in employment relations. Ellen will be teaching this course again this spring and we encourage both current students and alums to consider seeing what she has to offer. Again this year we contacted every private and public college in Wisconsin, and for the first time in Minnesota, to remind them of our degree program. We encourage our alumni to help spread the word about Wisconsin's premier professional degree in employment relations. We note that students from outside the state are also getting the word as we have current students from California, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri among others. Finally we encourage you to send us your news for future newsletters and to continue to support us by sending a contribution to either the MHRLR Alumni Outreach Fund or to the Melvin Lurie Scholarship Fund, c/o Patricia Fefer, Masters in Human Resources and Labor Relations, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413 Milwaukee WI 53201. John Heywood, Director MHRLR University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee P.O. Box 413 Milwaukee, WI 53201 |
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