Lisa Jordan Honored by the E&H Alumni Association
Dr. Jordan is the Director of Education for the United Steelworkers International Union, and an award-winning educator and leader in the fight for racial justice.
After studying Economics and Sociology at Emory & Henry College and being inspired by the work of Steve Fisher, Lisa received her PhD in Labor and Gender Economics from the University of Notre Dame. The daughter of a Teamster and granddaughter of a Mineworker, Lisa studied labor economics in order to better understand why working people so often bear the brunt of economic change and to position herself to better impact the political and legislative choices that lead to economic outcomes.
Dr. Jordan has worked both in the labor movement and academia. She began her career with the UAW and United Food and Commercial Workers as a researcher and organizer, and later served on the faculties of the Universities of Minnesota and Illinois. There, in addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate Industrial Relations, Labor Economics and Diversity, Lisa served as the Director of Gender and Diversity Programming. She took these experiences and led the creation of the Sustainable Business program at Brevard College.
Lisa joined the USW in 2008 and currently serves as the Director of the Education Department. In that capacity, Dr. Jordan coordinates the union’s leadership and other educational programming throughout the U.S., U.K. and Mexico, planned the union’s Civil Rights Conference, and helped guide the AFL-CIO’s Commission on Race and Income Inequality.
Lisa continues to stay active in her discipline by regularly presenting at academic conferences, serving as a consultant on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and recently published a chapter on the Future of Work and the essential role of worker voices in that conversation. She was excited to recently have the opportunity to help teach a class at Emory & Henry.
In 2016, she was elected to the National Board of Economic Research (NBER) Board of Directors. NBER is an American private nonprofit research organization that aims to conduct unbiased research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community. She was honored with the 2019 Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) Outstanding Practitioner Award for “her work at the United Steelworkers of America to promote conversations around workplace issues, to insure human rights in the workplace, to facilitate positive labor-management engagement, and to bring research out of academia to practice and improve the quality and scope of the education United Steel Worker members receive.”
Lisa is the very proud mother of two daughters, Dani and Angela, and two bonus daughters, Madeline and Eleanor. All remind her constantly that economics is boring; Lisa says they are wrong.
Other 2021 awardees are:
Carl and Ruth Looney Humanitarian Award:
Rob Goldsmith, Class of 1971
President and CEO at People, Incorporated of Virginia
Fred Selfe Service to Emory & Henry:
All our E&H in the City Volunteers
A.L. Mitchell Young Alumna Award:
Kishanna Caesar Heyward, Class of 2008.
Author of a coloring book that teaches children about the value and perils of credit.
James A. Davis Faculty Award:
Dr. James Duchamp
Emory & Henry Copenhaver Professor & Chair of the Chemistry Department
Open gallery
Emory & Henry Class of 1984