Christopher Otero-Piersante, assistant professor of English, completed the week-long NYSUT Leadership Institute co-sponsored by the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. The Institute was established by the New York State United Teacher's (the Faculty Association's state affiliate union) in 1997 to strengthen leadership skills at the local union level and to prepare future labor leaders. Christopher was recommended to the Institute by the FA's Faculty Council and selected by NYSUT to attend.
Seventy professors and K-12 teachers attended the August institute and participated in seminars that included topics on labor history and trends, leadership development, coalition building, community activism, human rights, workplace positivism, and contract advocacy.
"The Institute promotes leaders within education who care about workers' rights, community involvement, and student achievement," says Christopher. "It's about establishing and maintaining strong workforce relationships in support of each other's creative potential, whether on the line or in the classroom, in the first world or the third."
Otero-Piersante joins sociologist Lauren Pivnick and librarian Ellen Mancuso, 1998 and 1999 graduates of the Institute, respectively.
Marlene Goho
Faculty Association
09/17/2003 |