The graduation ceremony for this first-of-its-kind program took place in the lobby of AFL-CIO headquarters in downtown Washington June 5th, with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney delivering the keynote address and introducing the graduates. Three D.C. residents were among the program’s initial 10-member graduating class.

"I was inspired by the graduation ceremony of a friend of mine," said graduate Mark Pattison, secretary of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, explaining why he applied to the program. "She graduated from a bachelor’s program at the George Meany Center (for Labor Studies). I was so taken by her pride, I told her if they ever offer a graduate program to tell me and I’d enroll."

Three years ago, the George Meany Center in Silver Spring helped start the master’s program at UMass. The program was designed for people who are employed full time, which presented a unique set of challenges to organizers. The primary challenge was how to meet the university’s 30-hour classroom requirement when the students couldn’t be there for a full semester to take classes. The solution meant students were required to show up for classes in Amherst for five 10-day sessions during the three-year program.

"What it is is one semester condensed into 10 days," said Hugh Weathers, an environmental justice coordinator for the Inter-national Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades. "I couldn’t take a vacation because I was in school."

Tom Juravich, the program’s director, noted that most of the students in the program used their vacation time from work to fulfill their classroom time.

Required courses for students included courses on labor law, leadership and work organization, and financial analysis and administration. Elective courses included union organizing, collective bargaining and organizational theory classes. Students also were required to do research and work projects between course sessions.

"If you organized your work and scheduled your life, you could make it," Weathers said. "I organized my class work so I could set aside two hours a day to work on it, so I could stay caught up."

Brian Doherty of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers was the third District graduate from the program.

All said they were pleased with the organization and quality of the courses taught.

"I would not hesitate to recommend the program to anybody," Pattison said.

"I thought it was very well thought out, very well planned and very well executed," Weathers added.

"The program is meant for union members and leadership and staff," said Beth Berry of the Labor Relations Research Center at UMass. "We have had exceptions to that, however."

Berry noted that while the inaugural graduating class was only 10 people, there are currently about 90 people enrolled in the program.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator