Lawrence (Larry) Root
Director, Office of Global Activities and Professor of Social Work
Lawrence (Larry) Root
Degrees
- AB, Philosophy/Religion, 1968, Haverford College, PA;
- MSS, Community Organizations/Social Planning, 1971, Bryn Mawr College, PA;
- PhD, Social Service Administration, 1980, University of Chicago, IL
BioSketch
Larry Root's research and practice focus on the intersection of employment and social welfare. His initial social work experience was in the correctional system, including working with younger offenders in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on work release programs for felons. He taught at Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research before pursuing his doctorate at the University of Chicago. His dissertation led to the publication of "Fringe Benefits: Social Insurance in the Steel Industry," in which he used one major steel company as a case study of the development of employee benefits, particularly health insurance and pensions, which have shaped public and private social insurance in the United States. He studied the situation of older workers, creating the National Older Workers Information System (NOWIS), which subsequently became a central element of AARP's "Worker Equity" program. He has worked extensively with the UAW, Ford, and General Motors on employee assistance programs and educational options for workers, including a major distance learning initiative. As a core faculty member of the university's Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life, he worked with a team studying work-family issues in a southeast Michigan auto plant.
From 1993 to 2008, Larry directed the university's Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations (subsequently re-organized as the Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy). While director, Larry worked with colleagues to develop the institute's Labor and Global Change program, which supported a range of educational and research activities. He is a co-investigator on a Department of State project focused on developing labor-management committees in China and was principal investigator for a 2007-09 Department of Labor evaluation of monitoring international labor standards. He also is a mediator with the University's Mediation Services for Faculty and Staff.
| Larry Root, Director, Office of Global Activities and Professor of Social Work | ||||||||
| lroot@umich.edu | ||||||||
| Location |
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University of Michigan School of Social Work 1080 S. University Ann Arbor, MI 48109 |
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| Location |
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University of Michigan Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations 1111 Catherine St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 |
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Selected Publications
| Root, L., & Joon Choi, Y. (2011). Work in the lives of social work clients: Perspectives of field instructors. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 31(3), 313-328. |
| Root, L. S., & Young, Jr., A. A. (2011). Workplace flexibility and worker agency: Finding short-term flexibility within a highly structured workplace. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 638, 86-102. |
| Root, L., & Dickinson, K. K. (2010). Joint programs in the auto industry and the shaping of human services. In P. A. Kurzman, & R. P. Maiden (Eds.), Union contributions to labor welfare policy and practice: Past, present, and future. New York: Routledge. |
| Root, L., & Dickinson, K. K. (2009). Joint labor-management programs in the auto industry and the shaping of human services. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 24(1/2), 45-60. |
| Root, L., & Wooten, L. P. (2008). Time out for family: Shift work, fathers, and sports. Human Resource Management, 47(3), 481-499. |