Awards @ LERA's 64th

It wouldn't be a LERA Annual Meeting without awards. LERA's 64th in Chicago was true to the tradition.

LERA President Gordon Pavy, AFL-CIO (ret.) and past president Sheldon Friedman presented the organization's highest honor, the LERA Lifetime Achievement Award, to Rudy Oswald, AFL-CIO retired after 55 years of service. At right Rudy makes his acceptance speech among colleagues, family and friends in the Palmer House Hilton's elegant Empire Room.

Even after more than one-half century in the trenches, Rudy Oswald's union idealism showed forth undimmed into the future: "The labor movement must do what needs to be done for America's working men and women."

Tapped as new LERA Fellows were Rosemary Batt (Cornell, academic), Scot Beckenbaugh (Federal Mediation and and Conciliation Service, practitioner), Sarah Cox (AFL-CIO, practitioner), Morley Gunderson (Toronto, academic), Dean Harry Katz (Cornell, academic, pictured at right) and F. Donal O'Brien (arbitrator, practitioner).

Co-winners of the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Awards were Rebecca K. Givan (Cornell, National Award) and Jesse Rothstein (Cal-Berkeley, International Award). The James G. Scovill Best International Paper Award went to Hiroshi Ono (Texas A&M).

Co-winners of the Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award were Bob Bruno, Monica Bielske Boris and Ariel Avgar, all from the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois (pictured at left).

Daniel J.B. Mitchell (UCLA) won the Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award. The Outstanding Practitioner Award went to Stephen A. Wandner (Urban Institute).

There were four winners of the Chapter Star 2011 Awards awarded at the Annual Meeting: DC LERA, Terra (Murfreesboro, Tenn.), Orange Co. (Calif.) and Oregon chapters. In photo at right are representatives of Star Chapter Award winners.

Four LERA chapters achieved Outstanding Chapter status: Atlanta, Northwest (Seattle) and Wisconsin (Milwaukee), Boston and Alabama (Montgomery) chapters.

Click here to read "Chapter Excellence Shines" story.

In the student awards category, MIT's Alan Benson won the Doctoral Student the University Council of Industrial Relations and Human Resources Programs doctoral student paper competition with his paper on the segregation of women into geographically dispersed occupations.

Other student award winners were Maite Tapia (Cornell, right) who was a co-winner of the Susan C. Eaton Research Grant Award.

Co-winners of the Thomas A. Kochan and Stephen R. Sleigh Best Dissertation Award were Dionne Pohler (Saskatchewan) and Lu Zhang (Johns Hopkins) with Honorable Mention going to Kyoung Won Park (Case Western Reserve).

A tip of the LERA cap to the good work of the 2011 award committees! The 2011 award committee chairs were Morris M. Kleiner (University of Minnesota) LERA Awards Committe; William Canak (Middle Tennessee State University) National Chapter Advisory Council; Mark Stuart (University of Leeds) James G. Scoville Best International Paper Award Committee; Eileen Appelbaum (Center for Economic and Policy Research) Susan C. Eaton Research Grant Award Committee; and Bruce E. Kaufman (Georgia State University, pictured above left) Thomas A. Kochan and Stephen R. Sleigh Best Dissertation Award Committee.