Work and Labor Policy, Master of Arts
The Work and Labor Policy program is designed for graduate students employed by unions, business, government and schools, and people active in labor and politics. While the program provides you with a background in American labor relations, labor history, labor law and collective bargaining, the focus is on current problems and policies generated by changes in the global economy, technology, the workforce and the workplace. This program can increase your effectiveness in your present position or prepare you for new positions that deal in labor, government, industrial relations or human resources.
You are encouraged to use your elective courses and a final project to develop an area of specialty. Faculty will help you design your own elective courses, as well as a final project focused on a policy memorandum.
Program Delivery
This master’s program is delivered through online courses.
Admission is selective. New students can begin in the fall and spring terms.
Application
Please see the Graduate Admission section of this catalog for a complete listing of materials required to complete a graduate application.
Program Curriculum
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| All students of the program must take the following 6 courses: | 18 | |
| Work & Labor Policy Process | ||
| Work & Labor Studies | ||
| Labor Policy in America | ||
| Working in America | ||
| Labor & Employment Relations | ||
| Research Methods | ||
| Concentrations | ||
| Beginning in the fourth term, students will follow one of two concentrations. These concentrations allow a student to take scheduled or individualized electives to reflect their interests and to reinforce the individual focus of their degree. | 18 | |
| Work, Workers and Labor Organizations concentration | ||
Elective 1 | ||
Elective 2 | ||
Elective 3 | ||
Elective 4 | ||
| Final Project Design: Work and Labor Policy | ||
| Final Project - Professional Project: Work and Labor Policy | ||
| Public Sector Employment Relations concentration | ||
| Sociology of Work: Human Resources | ||
Elective 1 | ||
Elective 2 | ||
Elective 3 | ||
| Final Project Design: Work and Labor Policy | ||
| Final Project - Professional Project: Work and Labor Policy | ||
| Total Credits | 36 | |
Enrollment Sequences
The following are the suggested sequencing of course enrollment based on a part-time schedule. Students should work with their academic advisor to determine their individual sequencing.
Work, Workers and Labor Organizations Concentration Sequence
| Term 1 | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| LABR 6005 | Work & Labor Policy Process | 3 |
| LABR 6010 | Work & Labor Studies | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 2 | ||
| LABR 6015 | Labor Policy in America | 3 |
| PPOL 6020 | Research Methods | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 3 | ||
| LABR 6020 | Working in America | 3 |
| LABR 6025 | Labor & Employment Relations | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 4 | ||
| Elective 1 | 3 | |
| LABR 7005 | Final Project Design: Work and Labor Policy | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 5 | ||
| Elective 2 | 3 | |
| Elective 3 | 3 | |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 6 | ||
| Elective 4 | 3 | |
| LABR 7010 | Final Project - Professional Project: Work and Labor Policy | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Total Credits | 36 | |
Public Sector Employment Relations Concentration Sequence
| Term 1 | Credits | |
|---|---|---|
| LABR 6005 | Work & Labor Policy Process | 3 |
| LABR 6010 | Work & Labor Studies | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 2 | ||
| LABR 6015 | Labor Policy in America | 3 |
| PPOL 6020 | Research Methods | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 3 | ||
| LABR 6020 | Working in America | 3 |
| LABR 6025 | Labor & Employment Relations | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 4 | ||
| LABR 6030 | Sociology of Work: Human Resources | 3 |
| LABR 7005 | Final Project Design: Work and Labor Policy | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 5 | ||
| Elective 1 | 3 | |
| Elective 2 | 3 | |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Term 6 | ||
| Elective 3 | 3 | |
| LABR 7010 | Final Project - Professional Project: Work and Labor Policy | 3 |
| Credits | 6 | |
| Total Credits | 36 | |
Electives
Students are urged to use their electives to build a concentration in such areas as trade union administration, collective bargaining and dispute resolution, occupational health and safety, or human resource management. They may choose to take scheduled or individualized electives.
Examples of some scheduled electives include but are not limited to:
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| LABR 6050 | Government, Work, & Labor | 3 |
| LABR 6035 | Labor Arbitration | 3 |
| LABR 6070 | Theories of the Labor Movement | 3 |
Students can also design individualized electives to help them do work on their final project. With the help of their advisors, students of this program have designed individualized electives in Occupational Health and Safety in the Modern Workplace, Environment, Labor & Community, and Compensation, Motivation & Performance to name a few.
Transfer Credit
A request for transfer credit may be submitted to the School for Graduate Studies. Typically, 9 credits are acceptable for transfer subject to the Transfer Credit Policy (located elsewhere in this catalog). In addition to approval by your academic advisor, the coordinator of your program also must approve these credits.
Degree Program
To begin planning your degree program, think about your long- and short-range goals, the area you want to investigate or learn more about, policy areas that interest you, or any gaps that you have noticed in your education. Your academic advisor can assist you in thinking through these areas of interest and the ways in which they can be made into appropriate electives. If you are considering doctoral study, you also should investigate the requirements of programs that interest you so that you can incorporate their requirements into your Master of Arts degree. Degree program planning should begin in your second term.
Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to:
- Understand the policy process from formation to implementation;
- Create paradigm for analyzing public policy;
- Intensive engagement of specific policy issues;
- Engage in sustained, disciplined research effort; and
- Undertake professional challenges for the degree’s final project, applicable to the student’s degree plan.
Final Project
The final project represents the capstone experience in the program. This shall take the form of a Policy Memorandum, which is designed to support students’ professional and personal goals.
This is a challenging task, which draws on and brings together the skills and concepts learned through the master’s program. It requires identification of a public policy issue, examination, and interpretation of various sources of information relating to the issue including scholarly sources, analysis of possible approaches to the issue, and the student’s recommendations regarding the issue.
Learning Activities and Course Goals
As the capstone project for the master’s program, the policy memo builds on prior coursework and provides the opportunity for the student to engage in a sustained examination of a major policy issue; it integrates and puts into action the learning acquired throughout the program in courses such as policy process, public policy analysis, policy implementation, ethics and program-specific courses.
The purpose of this option is to reinforce the knowledge and skills required to analyze policy issues, develop defensible positions on policy issues, and clearly communicate a position in the form of a policy memo which is standard fare in the work of legislators, elected officials, agency heads, and other organizational leaders involved in the formation of policy.
The policy memo includes the exploration of a critical issue, the development of alternative approaches to the issue and a reasoned, evidence-based, defensible argument about how the issue should be addressed. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between a policy memo and other academic papers. Whereas academic papers build arguments by gradually introducing the least important ideas first, a policy memo uses an “inverted pyramid” of ideas, delivered as efficiently as possible, beginning with the most important. In a policy memo getting at the truth through the exploration and the interpretation of what is known about an issue is more important than developing new knowledge. As such, no thesis statement or theoretical framework underpins a policy memo.
Course goals:
- The ability to clearly identify a critical policy issue relatedto the student’sprogram;
- The ability to identify and access relevant information related to the problem;
- Demonstration of a nuanced comprehension, evaluation, and interpretation of the body of knowledge surrounding the issue;
- Exhibition of a disciplined application of knowledge in the formulation of alternative, feasible approaches to the issue; and
- Presentation, in good tightly-constructed prose, of a well- reasoned defensible approach to the issue that draws on relevant concepts from previously completed coursework.
To complete the project, the student will engage in general readings and use other resources related to the preparation of a policy memo as specified in the online course including videos and links to various websites.
Next, guided by the approved Final Project Proposal, the student will engage in the relevant readings for this project and prepare drafts of the policy memo. As opposed to preparing the entire memo all at once, the student will develop the memo in sections as follows: Executive Summary (while this appears first in a policy memo, its exact contents will change as the student progresses through this course); Argument, Counter Arguments, Analysis, Recommendations.
Following instructions in the online course, drafts will be submitted to the instructor for review and comments; the student will revise project drafts and return. This process will be repeated until the draft is accepted by the instructor. While there is no set number of pages for a policy memo which can range from a page to a hundred pages, for the purposes of this program, 20-30 pages is the target. The specific task should dictate the length of a policy memo. The writer should use a direct, efficient style of writing that results in a “tight” memo that does not ramble or engage in needless repetition. The student may be required at strategic points during the semester to provide drafts to other students for their feedback and, in turn, the student may be expected to provide feedback to help other students improve theirprojects.
At the end of the term, the student will be expected to make an oral presentation, following instructions in the online course. The presentation will be made to other students in the study, tothe instructor-of-record, and one additional faculty member. The student will be expected to respond to any questions that might be posed during thepresentation.
Finally, the faculty members involved will render an evaluation of the project and privately share their evaluation with the student. Even if the student receives a passing evaluation, he/she may be expected to make revisions to the project.