Labor & Employment Law

Labor College Partners with Native Workers

By James Parks

The National Labor College (NLC) is expanding educational opportunities to a new group of workers. The college signed an agreement with the College of Menominee Nation, a Native American tribal college with two campuses in Wisconsin.

The agreement makes it easier for students attending the tribal college to transfer up to 90 credits toward one of six labor studies majors at NLC.

Labor College President William Scheuerman says:

I am very pleased that the College of the Menominee Nation has joined our growing network of academic partnerships. All workers need to have access to higher education and there is a great need in our ever-changing workplaces for knowledge on how to deal with labor issues.

The NLC currently has more than 25 academic partnerships nationwide with community colleges and four-year college programs.

The College of Menominee Nation offers technical and trades diplomas in fields that include welding, electrical studies and sustainable residential building systems. The college also awards associate and bachelor’s degrees in more than a dozen academic fields.

Verna Fowler, president of the College of Menominee Nation, calls the new partnership agreement a positive step for both institutions.

Those who are preparing with us for the trades are high quality students and understand the changing demands of the workplace. We’re confident that these are men and women who won’t stop with their first job credentials, but will be interested in further learning in their fields. Our new agreement means that the coursework they do here with us will be applicable to the degree programs of our NLC partner.

With a 46-acre campus just outside Washington, D.C., the nation’s only labor college is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and grants bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The college evolved from the George Meany Center for Labor Studies, created in 1969, and now partners with the University of Baltimore and George Mason University for its graduate degree programs.

More than 1,200 union members have graduated from the NLC since 1998.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on December 13, 2009 (boomark / email).