University of Wisconsin - Extension

In 1925, the University of Wisconsin-Extension and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) launched the first of several “Summer Schools for Working Women” by bringing women factory workers from the Milwaukee area to the University of Wisconsin—Madison for a summer course in labor economics, labor law and principles of trade unionism. In 1927, the Wisconsin Federation of Labor agreed to sponsor these summer schools at the university and began to actively recruit male students.

Now, eighty years later, the University of Wisconsin-Extension School for Workers offers hundreds of programs each year in labor-management facilitation, workplace communications, compensation systems, job evaluation, workers compensation, time and motion study and ergonomics. This June, the School will celebrate its 80th anniversary, marking it as the oldest university-based labor education program in North America.

“Continuing changes in the workforce, government regulation and the increasingly global workplace requires the School be innovative in developing new curricula, to reach out to new audiences, and to teach and provide applied research to unions, workers and employers not just in Wisconsin, but throughout the Midwest and the country,” said John Lund, Director, School for Workers.

“Even today, 80 years after our founding, we are just as relevant as we were in 1925,”

added Leon Zaborowski, Ph.D., Dean of Outreach and E-Learning Extension, the division to which the School belongs.

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Time Line

1931: Summer school attracts nearly 1,200 participants.

1934: Alice Shoemaker becomes the School’s first director. She oversees the expansion into winter programs in various Wisconsin cities.

The New Deal and WWII: New programs are added, including collective bargaining and contract and union administration.

1944: The School is incorporated into the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

1950’s and 60’s: The School works with unions in Latin America, Egypt, and Turkey, hosting visiting delegations of trade unionists and teaching classes in labor law, time study, job evaluation, occupational health and safety and union administration.

Late 1970’s: The School wins one of the first Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) “New Directions” grants to develop curricula in hazard recognition, hazard control, ergonomics and labor-management safety and health.

1980’s: New technologies enter the manufacturing industry. The School pioneers curricula in cellular manufacturing, computer integrated and “lean” manufacturing

Today: The School offers more than 120 programs annually, which reach an audience of nearly 5,000 union officers, staff, members, labor-management committee members and managers. The School has 8 full-time professors.

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