URA-AFT Member Featured in Focus

Heather McKay

Last week's Focus article "Rutgers helping shape policy for new administration" featured URA-AFT member Heather McKay along with four faculty members. Here is what Focus wrote about McKay:

Heather McKay is director of the Sloan Center on Innovative Training and Workforce Development at Rutgers' Center for Women and Work. A paper on online training she wrote for the Communications Workers of America attracted the attention of transition team members, who asked her and co-author Eileen Appelbaum, professor in Rutgers' School of Management and Labor Relations, to propose a series of guidelines for the policy-makers.

McKay's memo suggested ways the internet can provide adult learners with access to skills to help them find jobs in a faltering economy.

"The fact that the Obama transition team reached out to all of us says a lot about the innovative work happening at the university," McKay said. "Traditional academic research is important, but it's also imperative to put research into practice. Our participation in the transition demonstrates the value and the quality of the academic work occurring at Rutgers today."

Read the rest of the article at http://news.rutgers.edu/focus/issue.2009-01-20.2858251382/article.2009-01-21.0766997764