Cornelliana Far Beyond a Quonset Hut: Fascinating Facts about ILR Stories You May Like MVR to ‘Milkorno’: Fascinating Facts about Human Ecology on the Hill ILR Alum Runs the Premier Talent Agency for Celebrity Pet Influencers 150 Years of Mechanical Engineering on the Hill: Fascinating Facts To celebrate the school’s 80th birthday, we offer 17 delightful details about its history and achievements By Joe Wilensky It was Cornell’s first new school launched in the post-World War II era. Opened in fall 1945, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations was founded to address the great workplace conflicts of the era, and to promote better labor-management relations. Celebrating its 80th birthday this year, ILR has become a global leader in the study of labor, management, and the economy. It continues to help transform the world of work—as its research and outreach influences policy and practice for employees, managers, unions, industries, corporations, governments, and nonprofits. ILR has become a global leader in the study of labor, management, and the economy. ILR currently enrolls 1,025 undergraduates and 175 grad students, with an academic and outreach faculty of more than 150. And it has nearly 14,000 living alumni—including union leaders, Fortune 100 executives, White House appointees, entrepreneurs, academics, and other notables. Eight decades ago, the then-governor of New York heralded ILR as a “trailblazing effort.” “This is no labor school where dogma will be taught,” Thomas Dewey said at its first convocation, “nor is this a management school where students will learn only to think of workingmen as items on a balance sheet.” Read on for 17 fascinating facts about the ILR School! It was the brainchild of a state legislator! Irving Ives was an assemblyman representing rural Chenango County in the 1930s when he conceived of a state school of industrial and labor relations—one that would help lay the groundwork to bring America’s workers and bosses to the negotiating table in times of discord. Ives Hall is named for ILR's first dean. In 1942, his committee recommended that the state establish a school at Cornell. Despite competing proposals from Syracuse University and Union College, his bill passed two years later. Ives was appointed ILR’s first dean, serving from 1945–47. As he was still a member of the legislature, he declined a salary. It opened (oddly) in the month of November! The new ILR School—and Cornell itself—started the academic year six weeks later than usual. This was due to the University’s rush to build new (and modify existing) housing to handle a surge in veteran enrollment, as some 800 additional students were taking advantage of the GI Bill. It was first headquartered in Warren Hall! First day of classes: November 5, 1945. Although headquartered on the Ag Quad, the school’s founding cohort of 107 undergrads and 11 grad students took courses in labor economics, collective bargaining, mediation and arbitration, and statistics in Arts & Sciences. Its library began with a single book! The first iteration of the ILR library debuted with one volume: a dictionary. In 1949, as the library grew, it established the Labor-Management Documentation Center, which would later become the renowned Kheel Center. The school’s first library quickly filled its allotted space. Former military barracks were its early home! In the school’s second year, most of its administrative and faculty offices moved into barracks and a Quonset hut—located on the future Engineering Quad—that had housed World War II training programs. Temporary digs on the future Engineering Quad. “We worked in what might be termed by cynics an academic slum,” founding faculty member Jean McKelvey once recalled. “Yet we all enjoyed our locale, despite the leaking roofs and hallways dotted with pails to catch the dripping water, because it helped to build broad friendships.” A popular class gave an up-close look at working life! Known as the “bus-riding” course, it took students into factories, mines, and other workplaces in New York and Pennsylvania, becoming an educational staple of the 1950s. Students visit an in-operation factory floor. It occupied former Vet college digs! In 1962, after 17 years of temporary housing, the school moved into four buildings, clustered near Garden Avenue and Tower Road, that had previously served as CVM’s surgery, blacksmith shop, labs, and large- and small-animal clinics. Cornell UniversityThe walls have eyes: An Ives exterior detail. Today, at least one façade still bears evidence of its former tenants: stone carvings of animals parade around the perimeter of an Ives Hall doorway. The first female cabinet member taught there! Stories You May Like MVR to ‘Milkorno’: Fascinating Facts about Human Ecology on the Hill ILR Alum Runs the Premier Talent Agency for Celebrity Pet Influencers The U.S. labor secretary for 12 years, Frances Perkins was the architect of legislation—unemployment compensation, Social Security, child labor laws, and the 40-hour work week—that vastly altered U.S. work culture. Known as the “mother of the New Deal,” Perkins was a visiting lecturer from 1957 until her death in 1965. Famously, she always taught while wearing a hat and pearls, and was the first woman to live in Telluride House. Rare and Manuscript CollectionsPerkins, in her typical teaching garb. It was home to the influential ‘American Ideals’ course! Professor Milton Konvitz, PhD ’33, offered the class for more than a quarter century, starting in 1947. Thousands of alums—including the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54—considered it foundational to their Cornell experience. Cornell UniversityKonvitz in later years. “I was a student in your American Ideals course in the early 1950s,” she wrote to Konvitz in 2003. “It was mind opening, and you were a marvelous teacher. I did have many questions, but was not brave enough to bring them to you.” Its grads include two current sports commissioners! Gary Bettman ’74 has been commissioner of the National Hockey League since 1993, while Robert Manfred Jr. ’80 has led Major League Baseball since 2015. Rachel PhilipsonBettman (left) and Manfred at an ILR event in NYC in 2017. Its campus expanded in the 1990s! ILR grew and modernized significantly, as aging structures on Tower Road were torn down and replaced with the new facilities—including Catherwood Library, the premier labor-management library in North America. An alum leads a major teachers’ union! Randi Weingarten ’80 has served as president of the 1.8 million-member American Federation of Teachers since 2008; previously, she was president of its NYC chapter. Heather AinsworthWeingarten on a recent visit to campus. Weingarten has returned to ILR numerous times to lecture and meet with students, most recently serving as a labor leader in residence in 2024. It houses programs devoted to workplace safety and more! The school has pioneered more than a dozen institutes, programs, and centers—including the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, the ILR Workplace Health and Safety Program, the Labor and Employment Law Program, the Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative, and the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution. It has headquarters in the Big Apple! ILR and its various entities have long maintained a presence in NYC. In 2019, it moved to new accommodations at the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan. Dean Alex Colvin, PhD ’99, unveils the new NYC space in 2019. Located on two floors of the historic General Electric building, the 40,000-square-foot space is shared by other Cornell colleges, units, and programs. Its new school banner balances tradition and modernity! Alexandra Bayer / Cornell UniversityColvin (far left) debuts the new design. Unveiled in 2024, the design reflects the school’s contemporary breadth—which includes human resources, business, law, government, and social justice—while staying true to its founding principles. The banner depicts a globe surrounded by the scales of justice, a wrench, a gear, an open book, and a bar graph. Like the original version, it has two hands shaking—but lacks the previous design’s smokestack. A young alum had a viral hit song! Paul Russell ’19 is a singer / songwriter best known for his 2023 hit “Lil Boo Thang,” which went viral on TikTok. It rose to 14 on the Hot 100—and famously garnered a spot on President Barack Obama’s summer 2024 playlist. In the wake of that fame, Russell performed at the White House, appeared in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and on American Idol, and opened for Meghan Trainor on her “Timeless” tour. Wikimedia Commons And … it boasts one of Cornell’s funniest T-shirts! A shirt popular among students lists the “Top 10 Reasons Why I’m in ILR.” They include: “Applied Engineering of Physics was too easy!”; “Enjoy having classes located on every other quad but my own”; and “Wait! This isn’t business school?” Another entry on the list evokes the enduring mystery around a notorious, long-vanished labor leader (who disappeared shortly after his 1975 visit to the school): “To find Jimmy Hoffa.” Top: Students work with vintage tech—including adding machines—in a 1947 statistics class. (All photos courtesy of the ILR School, unless otherwise noted.) Published November 14, 2025 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Quizzes & Puzzles How Much Do You Know about Africana Studies on the Hill? Students In Yiddish Class, Teacher and Students Find Mishpokhe—‘Family’ Alumni Backed by (Many!) Big Red Investors, a Famed Ithaca Inn Is Reborn