The West Virginia University graduate program in Human Resources and Industrial Relations has again been approved by the Society for Human Resource Management.

The master’s program, part of the College of Business and Economics, is one of 355 programs at 264 institutions in the world to have this designation.

“This is fantastic news,” said the College’s Milan Puskar Dean Jose Zito Sartarelli. “This notification is reflective of the quality of this program, which graduates highly skilled people who have the capacity to work successfully in the global marketplace. We have great relationships with companies and organizations throughout the state, nation and around the world because our MSIR graduates are among the best, and our job placement rate of these graduates is evidence of that.”

The Society makes its determinations with their HR Curriculum Guidebook and Templates, developed to define the minimum human resources content areas that should be studied at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The guidelines are part of the Society’s Academic Initiative to define human resources education standards taught in university business schools and help universities develop degree programs that follow those standards.

Dr. Neil Bucklew, professor of Management and Industrial Relations, acting coordinator of the program and past president of West Virginia University, said the approval extends this status for January 2015 through December 2017.

“We were one of the first four programs nationally to gain this status when SHRM originally started this alignment program,” said Bucklew. “WVU is one of only a very small number of educational institutions in the world to have this very special designation.”

The College of Business and Economics’ Master of Science in Human Resources and Industrial Relations program is one of the earliest human resources programs established in the United States, and is among a small number of human resources/industrial relations full-time day programs in the country.

Founded in 1948, the Society is the world’s largest human resources membership organization devoted to human resource management. With more than 275,000 members in at least 160 countries, the Society for Human Resource Management is the leading provider of resources to serve the needs of human resources professionals and advance the professional practice of human resource management. The Society has more than 575 affiliated chapters within the United States and subsidiary offices in China, India and United Arab Emirates. The Society is an active member of the North American Human Resource Management Association and the current secretariat for the World Federation of People Management Associations.

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CONTACT: Patrick Gregg, WVU College of Business and Economics
304.293.5131, Patrick.Gregg@mail.wvu.edu

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