• Nonprofit and Community Advocacy;
• Labor Organizing and Leadership; and
• Advocacy in the Public Sector.

Students are not required to take a concentration but they may do so if they are able to take the classes offered in that concentration.

LABOR UNIONS AND LEADERSHIP SUPPORT MAPL LABOR CONCENTRATIONttees

MAPL’s Labor Organizing and Leadership concentration has received outstanding support from the labor community. Dr. Eric Peterson, a well-known labor educator, formerly with the Labor Education Serivce of the University of Minnesota and now with Wellstone Alliance, designed the original classes. David Foster, Executive Director of the Bluegreen Alliance and past District Director of the 13-state District 11 of the United Steelworkers of America, one of the largest groupings of working men and women in the country, was also instrumental in the early stages.. and has taught in the program. Mr. Foster has also been one of the leading advocates in the country of the blue-green movement, the linking of union and environmental organizations into a potent political force.

Besides Foster and Peterson, MAPL’s Labor Organizing and Leadership has benefitted from the help of two academics who have taught and may continue to teach in the program: Tom O’Connell, a professor at Metropolitan State University, and Joel Sipress, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Superior.

In current times the MAPL Labor Concentration courses are taught by Bill Moore, formerly Chief of Staff of the Minnesota AFL-CIO. Moore is one of the thought leaders in the labor world in the U.S. and MAPL is happy to have him teaching in the program.

All community leaders have agreed to help the MAPL program in two ways: 1) Ensure that the course offerings are what their sector needs and wants students to know and 2) Help MAPL find good internships where students can gain valuable experience.

Concentration Courses for Labor Organizing and Leadership

MAPL 5111 - Labor Organizing
Historical overview of the evolution of modern labor movement, examine the state of organized labor and labor organizing today, and analyze two emerging models of union leadership – social movement leadership and institutional leadership.



MAPL 5113 - Labor and Political Economy
Overview of political economy and labor, examine different economic theories, changing economic policies and their impact on workers and labor, and examine specific case studies of political economy: the New Deal/Great Society policies, deindustrialization, monetary policy, globalization, welfare reform and taxation.



MAPL 5306 - Gender and Public Policy
Explores the politics of gender and public policy in the U.S. and is designed to provide students with a historical and theoretical background on policy formation, and a set of analytical tools applied to policy case studies.