Before joining the DLS in 1998, Steven Ashby served as executive director of Northwest Indiana's Calumet Project, a labor-community coalition that advocates for workers' rights. He was an Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers divisional safety steward for four years at American Maize in Hammond. He is a co-author of the forthcoming book The Staley Workers: Messengers of Struggle for the New American Labor Movement. He is also revising his dissertation into book form as Shattered Dreams: The American Working Class and the Coming of the Cold War. A recent recipient of the IU Trustees' Excellence in Teaching Award and the Industrial Relations Research Association Excellence in Education Award, Ashby teaches courses on labor history, grievance representation, membership mobilization, globalization, sweatshops, and labor in film and media.

Mark A. Crouch
Associate Professor
Fort Wayne
M.A. in Industrial Relations and Human Resources
University of Iowa, 1980

When Mark Crouch joined the faculty in 1980, he had over a decade of experience as a union member with the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers, serving as recording secretary, grievance committeeman, and bargaining committeeman for his Steel Workers local. As a teacher, he has been a member of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and the Indiana Federation of Teachers-AFT. He regularly teaches collective bargaining, grievance handling, economics, labor history, and employment rights in both the credit program and the noncredit Union Education Program. His research interests grow out of his plant-closing experience and include industrial plant site location and relocation and the labor movement's role in local economic development activities.

Charles Davis
Director and Professor
Indianapolis
Ph.D. in Economics
American University, 1986

Chuck Davis joined the Division of Labor Studies in 2001, after serving as director of labor relations for the Minnesota Nurses Association, representing 15,000 registered nurses in collective bargaining and organizing efforts. He has served as an advisor and consultant on collective bargaining strategies to dozens of labor organizations. He began teaching at the university level in 1978 and has held a number of academic appointments, including at the Universities of Minnesota and Missouri. Davis has published in the fields of labor studies and political economy. In 2002 he was elected president of the United Association for Labor Education (UALE), an international professional organization for union, university, and community labor educators.

Lynn S. Duggan
Assistant Professor
Bloomington
Ph.D. in Economics
University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1993

Lynn Duggan joined the Division of Labor Studies faculty in 1997, having worked as a staff researcher for District 1199 (West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio) of the Service Employees International Union and for Local 951 of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Her research areas include women in building trades; comparative U.S.-European social policy and labor movements; working conditions in U.S. retail employment; and gender issues in Third World economic development. She co-edited The Women, Gender and Development Reader, and her publications appear in Comparative Economic Studies, Feminist Economics, and National Women's Studies Association Journal and as chapters in numerous books. Her teaching includes courses titled Race, Class, and Gender; Labor and the Economy; Theories of the Labor Movement; Immigration; Sexual Harassment; and The Family and Medical Leave Act. She also coordinates the credit program in Bloomington.

Thandabantu Iverson
Lecturer
Gary
M.A. in Political Science
Clarke-Atlanta University, 1995

Before joining the Division of Labor Studies faculty in 1998, Thandabantu Iverson served as a health and safety organizer on the international staff of the Service Employees International Union; worked as a stage hand with the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees; was a coal miner with the United Mine Workers of America; was an auto worker with the United Auto Workers; and was a steel worker in the United Steel Workers of America. In addition to his participation in a number of social movements within the United States, Iverson's training in political science and women's studies contribute to his passion for research and teaching on the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class in U.S. work, politics, culture, and community. He is a doctoral candidate in Clarke-Atlanta University's Department of Political Science.

William Mello
Assistant Professor
Kokomo
Ph.D. in Political Science and Historical Studies
New School for Social Research, 2004

William Mello grew up in Brazil, where he began his trade union activity as a metalworker. After moving to New York and becoming an ironworker, he held positions as shop steward, recording secretary, union staff secretary, and fund manager for Ironworkers Local 455. Mello has served as an instructor in the Labor Studies program at Empire State College-State University of New York, the Apprenticeship Program for Interna-tional Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3, and the Department of Liberal Studies at Parsons School of Design, New School University. He joined the Division of Labor Studies in 2003.

Paul C. Mishler
Assistant Professor
South Bend
Ph.D. in U.S. History
Boston University, 1988

Paul Mishler was a labor educator in New York City before coming to IU South Bend in 2002. In New York he worked in university-based labor programs, teaching members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the Communication Workers of America; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; and provided leadership to the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 Bread and Roses Project. His past research projects have led to publications on the history of social justice movements in the U.S. He is now working on a documentary history of the relationship between the labor movement and broader social reform activities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mishler is especially concerned with economic class biases in education and the relationship between labor's struggles and the struggles against racism and sexism.

Najja N. Modibo
Assistant Professor
Indianapolis
Ph.D. in Sociology
University of Toronto, 1995

Najja Modibo was educated in Trinidad, West Indies, and Canada, where he worked with the Ontario Federation of Labour, Toronto's Metro Labour Council, and the Ontario Ministry of Labour. He has written three handbooks for marginalized workers, which have been translated into six languages, and several articles for the AFL-CIO News. He has researched Afro-Canadian nurses' experiences, focusing on gendered racism in the workplace, and is currently researching the impact of structural adjustment programs on working-class women in Trinidad. In addition to his Division of Labor Studies courses, Modibo also teaches in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies on the Bloomington campus.

Catherine Mulder
Assistant Professor
Fort Wayne
M.A. in Economics
Temple University, 1994

Catherine Mulder joined the labor studies faculty in 2002 and is currently completing her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts. Her primary research is an investigation and critique of trade unions, with a particular emphasis on New York City's Broadway Musicians. Mulder has more than 24 years of experience in the labor movement in various capacities, including professional staff member, elected official, and voluntary positions in unions that include International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 827, United Auto Workers Local 2322, and American Federation of Musicians Local 802. Before Mulder's academic career, she worked for 11 years for the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company as a cable splicer. Mulder teaches on labor economics, globalization, and contemporary labor issues, among other topics.

Ruth Needleman
Professor
Gary
Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Spanish and Latin American Literatures
Harvard University, 1972

Ruth Needleman joined the Division of Labor Studies in 1981 following activist work with César Chávez and the Farm Workers Union and as a Teamster unloader at United Parcel Service. In 1990 she took leave to serve as the Service Employees International Union's education director, designing programs for leaders, staff, and members and a leadership program for women and minorities. In 1993 she introduced Swingshift College, a degree program that is fully customized for working adults, for which she received IU Northwest's Award for Outstanding Service. Needleman has also received the Indiana University Northwest Founder's Day Award for Excellence in Teaching, two IU Board of Trustees Awards, and the statewide President's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism, her recent book, follows a series of articles on organizing, leadership development, and coalition-building. Needleman coordinates work with the United Steelworkers of America, is initiating a graduate program, and is writing on union education for social change.

Rae Sovereign
Lecturer
South Bend
B.S. in Labor Studies
Eastern Michigan University, 1993

Rae Sovereign came to the DLS in 2000. She held office in the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Local 514, where she was a painter for 11 years and participated in Michigan's Union Women's schools. In 1982, she co-founded a theater company called Workers' Lives/Workers' Stories that brought workers' stories to audiences in the United States and Canada for 12 years. She coordinated the Union Minority Women's Leadership Training Project at Eastern Michigan University and became the Midwest Regional Education Coordinator for the Service Employees International Union and later served as a union representative and organizer for SEIU Local 1, a 65,000-member local in the private and public sectors in Illinois and Indiana. Sovereign is the noncredit coordinator for the South Bend campus and is completing her Master of Arts in Applied Professional Studies at DePaul University.

Tim Thomas
Lecturer and Instructional Technology Coordinator
Indianapolis
B.A. in Economics
University of Michigan, 1988

After working in the Labor Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Tim Thomas served in the United Automobile Workers' Research Department, where he supported the collective bargaining efforts of Michigan state employees. Thomas did web and technology development for an IUPUI administrative office before coming to the Division of Labor Studies in 2001. He teaches courses in labor history and has completed several labor history projects, including the Labor History Map of Indianapolis and a multimedia local union history. Thomas coordinates the Labor Studies Online program and helps labor organizations with website development and technology planning.

Jeff Vincent
Research Director
Bloomington
M.S. in Industrial Relations
University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1984

Jeff Vincent is research director of the Division of Labor Studies' Institute for the Study of Labor in Society. He has worked extensively with state, regional, and national labor organizations and labor-management committees since joining the DLS in 1985. Vincent's labor research has included economic policy, construction markets, public opinion, and workforce development. His areas of teaching include worker rights, labor law, labor history, organizing, and the history of workers' education. He recently released a CD-ROM for the building trades' Union Leadership Training Rebuilding Activism (ULTRA) curriculum. He previously served as a shop steward in United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1444 and treasurer of American Federation of Teachers Local 2254. Vincent is completing his Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies at Indiana University.

David Williams
Lecturer and Noncredit Program Coordinator
Indianapolis
B.S. in Labor Studies
Indiana University

Williams has served in various local union posts, including shop steward, chief steward, education coordinator, and local union president. As part of an international exchange program, Williams has studied with the Metall (metalworkers) union in Sweden. Before joining the DLS, Williams served as a board agent for the National Labor Relations Board, Region 25. Williams currently serves as coordinator for the DLS annual Labor Law Conference and the annual Midwest Organizing Summit. Williams is project director for the Organize Indiana Project. Williams lectures on collective bargaining, negotiation, grievance representation, organizing, NLRB procedures, and union busting.

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