Thursday, August 18, 2022
Hope Mendoza Schecter was a member of the Harvard Trade Union Program (HTUP) Class of 1948. Founded in 1942, the HTUP was in those days hosted by the Harvard Business School, a place with many faculty and biz school students hostile to labor unions. I met Hope at the 60th anniversary of the HTUP, and she told me a story of how some slick-talking guy wanted to put her in a Hollywood movie. Hope turned him down and explained that she was already packing up en route to Harvard. No silly movie was going to get in the way of her education. A member of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Hope came to Harvard for a labor leadership program at a time when the Harvard Business School did not have female students. So her female labor classmates in this special program were pioneers in showing Harvard that women belonged there. It was not until 1963 that the first eight women enrolled in the MBA program at Harvard Business School. But Hope had already studied there with her labor union brothers and sisters in a program anchored by such faculty as Professor John T. Dunlop, who later became U.S. Secretary of Labor. Indeed in 2002 Professor Dunlop joined Hope for a photograph and shared memories of those days. John Trumpbour, Research Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School john_trumpbour@harvard.edu
