Opinion ID: 2456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff's Employment at the ILR School

Text: The ILR School is a contract college at Cornell, a statutorily-created partnership between the University and New York State, which offers a four-year undergraduate program in industrial and labor relations and receives state funding through the State University of New York (SUNY) system. It has both a Resident Division, which teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at Cornell's Ithaca campus, and an Extension Division, which offers courses designed for working practitioners at regional offices in Buffalo, Albany, New York City, Rochester, and Long Island. In 1983, after receiving her undergraduate degree from the ILR School and her law degree from New York University, plaintiff began her employment with the ILR School as an Extension Associate in the Extension Division. In 1987, after successfully completing the Extension Division's peer review process, she was promoted to the position of Senior Extension Associate II. Plaintiffs employment was a term appointment, in accordance with Cornell and ILR School written policy, which stated that senior extension associates may be appointed to terms of up to five years and may be reappointed on the basis of recommendations by the department and the appropriate extension director and dean(s). When plaintiffs employment contract was due to expire in October 1997, defendants assert that Associate Dean Ronald Seeber planned not to renew her appointment because of her strained relationship with the supervisor of the New York City office, Esta Bigler, but ultimately changed his mind because, first, plaintiff secured a project that permitted her to work away from the New York City office in the spring of 1998 and, second, the Resident Division needed teachers for particular courses in areas of plaintiffs expertise. Accordingly, plaintiff was reappointed for the term from February 1, 1998 to October 31, 2002. She then began teaching a full class schedule for the Resident Division, while also teaching and developing Extension programs and serving as a thesis advisor for undergraduate students. Between 2000 and 2003, plaintiff won various teaching accolades.