Advance

FALL 2014

Advance, Cornell ILR School's publication for alumni and friends.

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5 Martin P. Cather- wood, known as "MP," a professor of public administra- tion at Cornell who had been on leave to serve as the state's commerce commissioner, became ILR's dean and contin- ued in that role for 11 years. The school is expected to name its 11 th dean in 2015, 70 years after Ives' vision became reality. Educating, researching and reaching out to share knowl- edge remain the heritage of the ILR School, continuing to evolve decades after a small group of individuals dared to advance the world of work. Lois Gray started out to be an actress. She never made it to Broadway, but she's been performing on the labor education stage since 1946, when she became the frst director of ILR Extension in Buffalo. Now the Jean McKelvey -Alice Grant Professor Emerita of Labor-Manage- ment Relations, she is ILR's longest-serving faculty member, and one of the longest-serving faculty at Cornell. In its earliest days, Ex- tension was an upstate New York lecture series, featuring ILR faculty mem- bers and prominent labor relations specialists. Gray had always enjoyed public speaking, and had won oratorical and debate competitions throughout high school and college. She used those skills to travel the state and spread the word about ILR. Classes were soon added. "We offered free public programs open to anyone who wanted to enroll," Gray says. By the late 1950s, Exten- sion started to shift its focus, providing education tailored to the interests of particular groups and organizations. Today, she says, "We have much less emphasis on public programs and more on specialized programs." Gray moved to New York City in 1956 to become director of ILR's New York offce. The relocation gave her an opportunity to earn a doctorate in economics from Columbia University. In 1970, she and Profes- sors Jean McKelvey and Alice Grant established a training program for women arbitrators — the frst such program in the United States. In 1976, Gray was named associ- ate dean and director of Extension. She was responsible for such innovations as "train- ing trainers" for industry and unions, the Institute for Women and Work and the Latino Leadership Center. Gray was the frst woman to be elected national president of the University and College Labor Educa- tion Association, now the United Association for Labor Education. She has traveled widely, and has consulted nation- ally and internationally. And that love for the theater? She channeled it into an expertise in labor relations in arts and enter- tainment. Gray is the recipient of two Lifetime Achieve- ments Awards — one from the Labor and Employment Relations Association and one from the United Association for Labor Education. To honor her late hus- band, a prominent labor leader, she established the Edward Gray Memorial Credit Internship Awards for students considering careers in labor and social action. In 2010, the Lois Gray Professorship of Indus- trial Relations and Social Science was established in recognition of her found- ing role at ILR. "I've been with ILR my entire life," says Gray, who, at 90, still teaches part time. "It's been great — I've en- joyed every minute of it." j 3 r - L o i Re a Lifete Re a Lifete

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