Faculty

CLEAR Faculty Directory

http://clear.uhwo.hawaii.edu Phone: 454-4774; FAX: (808) 454-4776 email: clear@hawaii.edu

William J. Puette, Ph.D.
CLEAR Director

Dr. Puette, originally from Cleveland, Ohio is a long-time resident of the State of Hawai‘i. He was recruited from the mainland to teach English at the old Maui High School just as the public sector collective bargaining was enacted, and he was a delegate at the founding convention of the Hawaii State Teachers' Association.

He holds an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania at Edinboro and a Ph.D. from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

He has taught Humanities and Language Arts as a Lecturer and Instructor variously at a private College in Kyōto, Japan, and throughout the University of Hawai‘i system. For three years he served as a full-time field representative for the Central O‘ahu Chapter of the Hawaii State Teachers Association. At present, he is the Director of the Center for Labor Education & Research at the University of Hawai‘i where, for the past twenty years, he has been teaching and working to establish a Labor Studies degree program. At CLEAR he developed a Leadership Skills Seminar, a Labor Law course, popular programs on Contractual Grievance Handling, parliamentary procedure, and Labor History.

He is also the publishing editor for a Hawaiian labor history series, author of the booklets, CLEAR Guide to Hawai‘i Labor History, Labor Dispute Picketing: Organizing a Legal Picket in Hawai‘i, A Picket Guide for Hawai‘i Public Employees: Organizing a Legal Picket Line Under Chapter 89, HRS, and Pa‘a Hui Unions: the Hawai‘i State AFL-CIO, 1966-1991; and of the books: A Readers Guide to the Tale of Genji (Tuttle, 1983), The Hilo Massacre(UH, 1988), and Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor (ILR Press, 1992).

In addition, he is a labor arbitrator; a Professional Registered Parliamentarian (PRP) by the National Association of Parliamentarians (NAP), Vice President of the Hawaii State Association of Parliamentarians; Vice President of the Aloha ‘Ohana Parliamentary Unit of Hawai‘i; and a Certified Parliamentarian (CP) by the American Institute of Parliamentarians (AIP); a long time volunteer counselor with the Aloha and Maui Councils of the Boy Scouts of America, for whom he has taught dozens of American Labor merit badge clinics to hundreds of boys throughout the state. In 1992, working with the Hawai‘i State AFL- CIO and the Labor's Community Services Liaison Program of Hawai'i, Dr. Puette developed a similar program for the Hawai‘i Council of the Girl Scouts, recognized as the first such program for Girl Scouts in the United States.

In 1993, Dr. Puette was named winner of Penn State's Lowell-Mellett Award for outstanding media criticism, and in 1994 he was given the George Meany Award for Outstanding Service to Youth by the Hawai‘i State AFL-CIO and the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and in 2005 the University of Hawai‘i awarded him the Hung Wo and Elizabeth Lau Ching Foundation Award for Faculty Service to the Community.

UHWO Course Page RÉSUMÉ & VITA Phone: 454-4774 email: puette@hawaii.edu

Adrienne Valdez, M.A., M.Ed.
Labor Education Specialist

Adrienne received a BA in philosophy and a Masters in education from Penn State University and a Masters in American studies from the University of Hawai‘i. She has been a teacher for 36 years, including twelve years as a special education teacher and two years as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Yap, Micronesia.

Adrienne joined the staff at the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai‘i as a fulltime faculty member in 1986 and received tenure in 1991.

Some of her current areas of emphasis at the Center are developing and presenting programs on workplace discrimination law and equal employment opportunity, conflict resolution, negotiating skills including collaborative or win-win negotiating, women's issues in the workplace, workplace violence, workplace diversity, interpersonal communication skills, leadership skills development, and internal union organizing.

Over the last nineteen years, Adrienne has been invited to conduct over 1100 workshops on these and other topics for well over 26,000 people from union, employee and management groups and other interested organizations throughout the state. This includes over 400 workshops on the topics of discrimination law and sexual harassment.

Since 1974, Adrienne has been continuously active both in her local union and at the national level in the National Education Association (NEA), the largest U.S. union. While living and teaching in Pennsylvania, she was a local president for six years and chief negotiator for three contracts. In Hawai‘i, she served three years as the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly vice president, and was on the board of directors and executive committee for six years, and is currently a shop steward.

At the national level she has attended 25 national conventions as an elected union representative, served on the NEA Resolutions Committee for nine years, and was a NEA national trainer in the Women's Leadership Training Program for six years. For the last eight years she has been an NEA national peer trainer for an anti-bullying and sexual harassment prevention and intervention for grades K to 12.

In addition, Adrienne has mediated over 800 disputes as a trained volunteer mediator, facilitated groups in conflict resolution and problem solving processes, taught women's studies and psychology courses at the University of Hawai‘i, and is the EEO/AA Officer and Disabilities Coordinator for her campus. Office phone and voicemail- (808) 454-4781.

Email: avaldez@hawaii.edu

Lawrence W. Boyd, Ph.D.
Labor Economist

Dr. Boyd received his Ph.D. in Economics from West Virginia University in 1993, and joined the faculty of the Center for Labor Education & Research at the University of Hawai‘i in 1994. His dissertation on "The Economics of the Coal Company Town," was one of three finalists for the Allen Nevin's Prize awarded to the best dissertation written on some facet of American economic history.

In addition to continuing his work on company towns he has also done research on workers displaced from Hawaiian plantations. Other research includes an analysis of the growth and development of the Hawaiian economy and the impact of local and national governments on that growth. He has also been doing research on the historic behavior of wages and prices.

While he has been on the faculty at CLEAR, he has advised the following unions during their negotiations: Carpenters Local 745, University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, Hawaii State Teachers Association, Teamsters Local 996, State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers, Inland Boatmans' Union and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union 142.

Previous to earning his doctorate, he was a coal miner, who was an activist in the United Mine Workers. He also worked briefly as an organizer for District 1199 in Pennsylvania.

Currently at CLEAR he teaches seminars on labor economics, the Hawaiian economy, and negotiating labor agreements with a special emphasis on economic issues. Office phone and voicemail - (808) 454-4780.

Email: lboyd@hawaii.edu

Chris Conybeare, J.D.
Rice & Roses Producer

Since 1995 Dr. Conybeare has been serving at the Center Labor Education & Research as the producer of our video production unit and Rice & Roses programs.

A Fulbright Scholar (September 2003 to June 2004] on the faculty of Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, he worked with the Press Council of Turkey and studied press freedom in Turkey and transitional democracies in the region.

He received his Juris Doctor degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio in 1971, and has been active in the labor movement on the Mainland and in Hawai‘i ever since.

In addition to his law degree, Dr. Conybeare has a long and distinguisehed career in media production. From 1981 to 1989 he produced Rice & Roses for CLEAR on a contract basis and from 1988 to 1993 he was Executive Producer of News and Public affairs at Hawai‘i Public Television, producing such well-known programs as Asia Now, and Dialogue.

Long a member of the American Federation of TV and Radio Artists (AFTRA), he served as local chapter board member (1986-1992) and president (1991-1992).

Email: chrisc@hawaii.edu

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