A master’s degree program which offers a union leadership track is moving from the University of Minnesota Duluth to Metropolitan State University in St. Paul.
Founded in 2003, the innovative Master of Advocacy and Political Leadership program emphasizes real-world learning as well as classroom experience. MAPL offers three concentrations: Advocacy in the Public Sector, Nonprofit Advocacy, and Labor Organizing and Leadership.
About 20 percent of MAPL students pursue the labor concentration, reported Wy Spano, MAPL founder and co-director. “If they want to be involved in advocacy work and work for a union and be the best provider of services they can be, then we’re the place to be.”
Designed for working adults, the MAPL program spans four semesters over two years, with classes meeting 11 weekends per semester.
“Cohorts” of up to 15 students begin their MAPL enrollment at the same time and progress through the four-semester program as a group.
For Twin Cities metro area students who’ve made the journey to Duluth to spend weekends together, the MAPL experience forged deep bonds within their cohort.
“The one thing I worry about in moving to the cities is making sure that bonding continues to happen,” Spano said.
“Our students — they think of themselves as MAPL,” Spano said. “Somehow we can’t give that up.”
One of nearly 200 MAPL graduates is Candace Lund, currently an organizer for UNITE HERE Local 17.
“I’m glad we found a new home for the MAPL program in the metro area,” Lund said. “It will give MAPL more visibility.”
Lund credits her MAPL degree for helping her land her previous job as mobilizing/organizing director for the Minnesota AFL-CIO.
Lund was president of AFSCME Local 3937, the technical workers bargaining unit at the University of Minnesota, when she began the MAPL program. “I was looking for a way to continue the political advocacy I was doing and the union work. It was the perfect program for what I was looking to learn,” she said.
“I got my dream job [at the Minnesota AFL-CIO] three months after I got my MAPL degree,” Lund related. “I thought that was pretty good!”
Unions have provided scholarships for students in MAPL’s labor concentration, Spano said. “We’re going to be out asking again for union support, both with funding and with students.”
“Many of our folks are at the core of what’s happening in the labor movement, at least here in Minnesota,” Spano noted. “We want to continue that.”
MAPL’s labor faculty includes Bill Moore, retired chief of staff of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, and Erik Peterson, director of labor programs for Wellstone Action.
The last MAPL cohort to start the program at UMD will begin in September 2014. The first MAPL cohort to start the program at Metropolitan State University will begin in January 2015.
For more information, call 218-726-6711 or visit the MAPL website.