One Year Later, What’s Ahead for Teachers?

Alexander Colvin, Ph.D., ’99, is the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman ’75, M.S. ’76, Professor of Conflict Resolution at Cornell University’s ILR School.

Dean Colvin’s research and teaching focuses on employment dispute resolution, with a particular emphasis on procedures in non-union workplaces and the impact of the legal environment on organizations. His current research projects include empirical investigations of employment arbitration and cross-national analysis of labor law and dispute resolution. Dean Colvin is the co-author of “An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations” (with T. Kochan and H. Katz) and of “Arbitration Law “( with K. Stone and R. Bales).

Dean Colvin received his J.D. in 1992 from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in 1999 from Cornell University. He received the 2003 Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA) and the 2000 Best Dissertation Award from the IRRA for his dissertation entitled “Citizens and Citadels: Dispute Resolution and the Governance of Employment Relations.” Before joining the faculty of the ILR School, Dean Colvin taught at Penn State University from 1999 to 2008.

Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, a union of 1.7 million teachers; paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; higher education faculty and staff; nurses and other healthcare professionals; local, state and federal government employees; and early-childhood educators.

Before her election as AFT president in 2008, Ms. Weingarten served for 11 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, representing approximately 200,000 educators in the New York City public school system as well as home childcare providers and other workers in health, law, and education. 

Ms. Weingarten was included in Washingtonian’s 2021 Washington’s Most Influential People, and in 2013 the New York Observer named her one of the most influential New Yorkers of the past 25 years. She holds degrees from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Cardozo School of Law.