Warwick Peoples the World of Industrial Relations - the 1000th Masters Graduate

Warwick Business School is celebrating the graduation of its 1000th Master of Arts in Industrial Relations (MAIR). Clare Mullis will receive her certificate from Richard Burden, MP for Birmingham Northfield, on Friday 12th January. Richard Burden is himself a graduate of the Warwick MAIR, as, by remarkable coincidence, is his ministerial 'boss' the Right Hon. Jeff Rooker MP. The MAIR degree started in 1968, when the Business School itself began, and its continued success both reflects and contributes to Warwick's reputation as a leading European centre for the study of this subject.

MP Richard Burden is delighted to be part of the celebration, and says: "It is a great pleasure for me to be able to welcome Clare Mullis as Warwick's 1000th MA graduate in Industrial Relations. It's also difficult for me to believe that it is now over 20 years since my time at Warwick, when Hugh Clegg was Professor. But what I learned during that year has stayed with me and has been immensely valuable to me both when I worked in the trade union movement until 1992 and subsequently as an MP. I would also like to wish Clare all the best for the future as she begins her chosen career. No doubt she will discover, as I have, that you never entirely leave Warwick. I keep coming across other Warwick graduates in all kinds of fields over the past 20 years, and I've no reason to believe that will change in the next 20. Here's to the 2000th graduation celebrations!"

Graduating with Distinction, Clare embodies the changing nature of industrial relations, going on to work in Human Resources at the London office of Citigroup, an international banking organisation operating in over 100 countries around the world.

Clare says of her time spent at Warwick: "The MA proved to be a challenging and stimulating course. I particularly relished studying alongside students from diverse backgrounds and being taught by leading academics in this subject. I was introduced to new theoretical concepts which encouraged and enabled me to think about employment in a broader manner."

Clare Mullis is just one of an annual intake of between 30 and 50 students who each year have gone on to careers around the world not only in management, but also in trade unions, local and national government, policy-making bodies and research institutions. The Warwick MAIR also counts among its graduates many Professors of the subject in universities in the UK and overseas. Just a few of its distinguished graduates include:

• Sheila McKechnie OBE
  Director of the Consumers' Association
• Dave Prentis
  General Secretary of UNISON, the country's largest trade union
• Paul Mackney
  General Secretary of the education union NATFHE;
• Patrick Rabathaly
  Member of Industrial Court for Trinidad and Tobago;
• Jeff Rooker MP
  Social Security Minister
• Wendy Alexander MSP
  Member of the Scottish Cabinet
• Steve Williams
  HR Director UK Operations, PowerGen International
• Ali Büyükuslu
  Secretary General of the Chemical, Petroleum, Rubber and Plastic Industries Employers' Association of Turkey
• Prince William Ankrah
  Deputy General Secretary of Ghana Mineworkers Union ('Prince' in this instance does not denote royalty, it is his given name)
• Lesley James
  former HR Director at Tesco and a Vice-President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
• Eddie Scouller
  Head of Equal Pay Team, Equal Opportunities Commission
• John Knell
  Deputy Director of Futures and Head of Research at the Industrial Society.

Professor Linda Dickens, academic director of the masters programme, herself graduated from the course in 1971. She comments: "Reaching 1,000 graduates shows the continuing relevance of the study of industrial relations. Over the past thirty-two years the programme of course has changed in line with developments in employment practices and their context, and in the concepts and theories of industrial relations. The close links between the MAIR and the Business School's Industrial Relations Research Unit ensures that teaching benefits from the most recent research and is always of contemporary relevance. I am glad that our 1000th graduate is a woman - in the early days women were vastly outnumbered by men. But some things don't change - many of the key themes and issues taught today would be recognisable to those who studied here in earlier decades; as would the mix of theoretical and practical approaches and perspectives which is a hallmark of the programme. A recurrent theme in industrial relations is change and continuity - it seems appropriate therefore that the Warwick MAIR should display both".

As well as directing the MA Programmes in Industrial Relations at Warwick, Prof. Linda Dickens is Deputy Chairman, Central Arbitration Committee, and a Disputes Arbitrator for the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). She has acted as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Employment and has held visiting positions at universities in Australia and the USA.