MLER Alumni Spotlights

Value of your SMLR degree: 

SMLR provided me with a keen understanding of employment and labor law.

Advice for students:

Be active within the SMLR community - attend events and join student organizations!

Recent Projects:

I recently worked with our team to improve our pension and welfare funds, business development, and ways to provide additional pathways toward educational credentials for our membership.

Advice for students:

Enter every conversation, no matter who it is with, expecting to learn something.  No matter where you are on your journey, the experience at SMLR will always serve as a valuable tool for your future endeavors.

Value of your SMLR degree:

The MLER program in the School of Management and Labor Relations has provided a curriculum with relevant coursework to develop professional skills as well as the flexibility to explore your interests. In combination, the master’s degree from SMLR and their strong relationships with Fortune 500 companies, this led to my successful acceptance to an offer from IBM in their HR Leadership Development Program.

Advice to recent graduates:

Do not be afraid to get out of your comfort zone. Be open to meeting new people, developing skills for the future, and exploring job functions outside of your current interests.

Currently working on:

Supporting the Global Supply Chain and Global Technology organizations with HR/People Analytics. We're still learning and finding the best ways to get better data (not just reports) to our HR Business Partners and the business. Currently working on building dashboards, continuous improvement of data, and tackling some of the business' questions.

The value of your SMLR degree:

Helped me land my first internship with Colgate roughly 6.5 years ago and gave me the global perspective needed working at a global company.

Advice to recent graduates:

Don't be afraid to try something new. If you would've told me 6 years ago or 3 years ago, that I'd be doing HR Analytic - working in Tableau and learning R, I wouldn't have believed you! It may not be the perfect fit but you'll always learn something new in industry and about yourself.

Recent projects:

CHOP is a non-profit federal contractor and I am responsible for all EEO & Affirmative Action Plan programs and activities in addition to supporting the HR Compliance team and their projects.

Value of your SMLR degree:

All companies with 50+ employees must abide by the EEO laws which state that an employer cannot discriminate or take negative employment actions towards an employee or applicant belonging to a protected class. Federal contractors not only have to follow those regulations, but also fall under the purview of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

My SMLR degrees gave me employment law foundations and research skills to be able to understand how various federal/state/accrediting body’s regulations and standards intersect with the daily operations of the hospital allowing me to initiate proactive steps to mitigate any risk that exists for the hospital, our staff and our patients.

What my work day is like:  

My days vary between defending management’s disciplinary decision at a grievance hearing, interpreting contract and policy language for management, attending arbitrations for fact checks, drafting discipline, consulting with management on how to address issues that may be dictated by CBA’s, and overseeing a disciplinary tracking system.

Value of your SMLR degree:   

The expanded knowledge base for succeeding in my career.  The courses: Conflict Resolution, Employment Law, Workplace Violence, and Collective Bargaining, help me grasp the gravity of the issues that I deal with on a daily basis. 

Also, I have been visiting RU since I was 5. My loyalty is deep. My mother was a custodian at RU and retired after 38 years!