Penn State's Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations
Engages in teaching, research, and outreach on all aspects of work and the employment relationship. Our students go on to careers in human resource management, labor relations, union organizing and representation, employment law, and government. Over the last decade the Department has increased its focus on international labor and human resource issues. LSER now offers undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University Park campus and online through PSU's World Campus..
Spring 2013 World Campus, MPS Reception
A group picture with Dr. Clark, Dr Hogan, Amy Dietz, Paul Whitehead,
& Trisha Everhart with some of our World Campus
LER, OLEAD, and MPS spring 2013 graduates.
LSER Celebrates 70th Anniversary with Gala Dinner and Professional Symposium
On April 12, 150 LSER alumni, students, faculty, staff, former faculty, and friends of the Department gathered on campus at the Nittany Lion Inn to celebrate LSER’s 70th Anniversary. Following remarks by the Department Head Paul Clark and LSER’s Alumni Program Group Co-Presidents Jackie Brova and Rex Simpson, the Annual Phillip Murray Memorial Lecture was delivered by Bob King, International President of the United Auto Workers. The Dinner also featured the debut of a short film titled “Then and Now: The Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, 70 Years of Service” that commemorates the Department’s past and present contributions (click here to view the film). The event continued with a professional symposium on April 13 that featured sessions on employment law, cutting edge issues in HR, the future of the labor movement, and other issues. Lunch featured a keynote talk on workplace violence by Dennis Davis, Ogletree Deakins’ National Director of Client Training. The symposium concluded with an interactive workshop conducted by alum John Gerak.
Join scholars from around the world at the forthcoming Global Conference on International Human Resource Management to be held at University Park, PA,
on May 9-10, 2013
Each Spring SHRM presents the Northeast Regional Student Conferences & Case Competition. The two-day conference is packed with keynote speakers, educational sessions, career development opportunities, networking and a Regional Case Competition, where teams of graduate and undergraduate students compete separately.
The SHRM Case Competition consists of a one day event where teams of up to six undergraduate or graduate students from various colleges and universities compete in both oral and written presentations. The case is created specifically for the SHRM Case Competition and can focus on any number of HR issues (i.e., Management Practices; Selection & Recruitment; Training & Development; Compensation & Benefits; Employee/Labor Relations; and Health, Safety & Security or a combination). This year the Penn State Graduate team took 2nd place in the graduate division.
In October 2012, Renate Klass received the Kelley-Willits Award for Excellence in Online Teaching. This award is given each year to an instructor in the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Online Program who demonstrates exceptional teaching ability, concern for students, and commitment to the Department’s mission of preparing practitioners for productive careers in the field of human resources and employment relations.
Renate Klass is a veteran instructor who has taught in the MPS in HRER program since its creation in 2008. An accomplished attorney, Klass regularly teaches HRER 501—Labor and Employment Law. She also created and teaches HRER 811, an Advanced Course in Labor and Employment Law.
Klass consistently receives very high student evaluations. She is known as a demanding, but fair, instructor, who challenges her students. Students greatly appreciate her responsiveness to their questions and her willingness to engage with them.
Klass received her award on campus during the World Campus’ Online Teaching Convocation.
Sumita Raghuram Below is a short description of her forthcoming article:
The impact of impression management on Indian call center agents’ identities Sumita Raghuram, Forthcoming in Human Relations
How do work practices impact the identities of its employees and their societal culture? In a study of call center agents located in India, Prof. Sumita Raghuram finds that because of the intense cognitive demands of their work, the agents reassessed their work and non-work identities. Cognitive demands come from using Western names, foreign accents, and scripts that convey a Western self to the Western customers over a telephone medium. For some agents, the boundaries between the work and non-work identities start to break down as they incorporate parts of their work identities into their non-work contexts, thereby creating hybrid identities of Indian-Americans.
Check out our video (below) on the LER major and learn more about the many career options available in human resources, law, goverment, and the labor movement to LER graduates!
In October 2012, Renate Klass received the Kelley-Willits Award for Excellence in Online Teaching. This award is given each year to an instructor in the Labor Studies and Employment Relations Online Program who demonstrates exceptional teaching ability, concern for students, and commitment to the Department’s mission of preparing practitioners for productive careers in the field of human resources and employment relations.