UO LERC looking to fill two faculty vacancies

University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Resource Center (LERC) is down two faculty members. 

Sherman Henry, who joined LERC’s Portland campus in 2016, left in April on a one-year leave of absence to accept a job at Morehouse College in Atlanta—helping to set up a new program in International Comparative Labor Studies. Morehouse is an all-male historically black college with many notable alumni, including Martin Luther King, Jr. For Henry, it’s a return to the South; prior to LERC, he spent 20 years as an AFSCME union activist in Miami and taught labor studies at Florida International University.

Lina Stepick, who joined LERC’s Portland office as a researcher in 2018, also left in April, to take job as senior researcher in community development for the Portland office of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 

Their departures leave LERC with just three faculty members: Career instructor Mark Brenner at UO’s Portland campus, and professor Gordon Lafer and LERC director Bob Bussel on the Eugene campus. Bussel says LERC will launch a hiring process this fall and hope to bring on two new faculty as early as Spring 2022. 

Oregon Nurses Association leader steps down

Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) announced June 25 that executive director Sarah Laslett has resigned in order to support a family member facing serious illness. Laslett came to ONA in March 2020 after having trained members and staff as a faculty member at University of Oregon Labor Education and Resource Center (LERC). 

Mayor Wheeler reappoints construction union leader to development agency

By unanimous consent at the June 16 meeting of Portland City Council, Mayor Ted Wheeler reappointed Willy Myers to a third three-year term on the Prosper Portland board of commissioners. Myers, a former Sheet Metal Local 16 union organizer, is the executive secretary-treasurer of the Columbia Pacific Building and Construction Trades Council, the coordinating body that most Portland-area building trades unions belong to. Prosper, formerly known as the Portland Development Commission, is the City’s economic development agency. Myers’ new term expires June 30, 2024.