Late pioneer in ILR given UAW award

To honor the first faculty member of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the first woman to serve as president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union awarded Jean McKelvey, posthumously, the UAW Social Justice Award at its convention in June.

In the past, the award has been given to such prestigious national and international figures as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Cited for being "a true pioneer in labor-industrial relations education" and for serving the UAW "with distinction as a member of the Public Review Board" for four decades, McKelvey's bronze plaque also acknowledges that she was "a woman of unsurpassed integrity, an influential teacher and scholar and a steadfast defender of the right of working people to organize and bargain collectively. She was also a wonderful friend of the UAW."

As the first faculty member of the ILR School at Cornell, McKelvey, who died Jan. 5 of this year at the age of 89, co-authored the school's first curriculum and taught a variety of courses in arbitration, labor law and labor practices. She was named professor emerita in 1976 but continued to teach and serve as coordinator of off-campus graduate credit courses for ILR Extension programs in Syracuse, Albany, Corning, Elmira and Rochester. In a 1994 tribute to McKelvey, the ILR School created its first endowed chair, the Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations.

McKelvey's influence as an educator can be seen in the achievements of her students, many of whom have gone on to accomplished careers as labor leaders, arbitrators and jurists, including U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Harry T. Edwards '62.