IIT Chicago-Kent students Chris Bowers and Margot Nikitas awarded Peggy Browning Fellowships

Chris Bowers and Margot A. Nikitas, second-year students at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, have been awarded 10-week Peggy Browning Fellowships for the 2011-12 school year.

"Peggy Browning fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school, but have already demonstrated a commitment to workers' rights through their previous educational, volunteer, personal and work experiences," said Mary Anne Moffa, executive director of the Peggy Browning Fund, which administers the fellowship program.

Chris Bowers, a 2012 candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in labor and employment law, will work with the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) in Detroit. Founded in 1935, the UAW has about 390,000 active members and more than 600,000 retired members in 750 local unions.

Bowers credits his interest in labor law to growing up in a union family. His grandfather was an ironworker; his father is a millwright. While earning his bachelor's degree in brain, behavior and cognitive science from the University of Michigan, Bowers worked in construction as a member of the Laborers' International Union of North America. As a Chicago-Kent student, he has worked as a labor and employment law clerk at the Cook County State's Attorney's Office and completed an externship with the Honorable Robert Cahill of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District.

Margot Nikitas, also a 2012 candidate for a J.D. with a certificate in labor and employment law, will spend her fellowship period in Pittsburgh at the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Established in 1935, UE represents approximately 35,000 employees.

Nikitas earned her undergraduate in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has completed a summer internship with UE in Chicago and with Citizen Works, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C. Nikitas currently is a research and teaching assistant for Chicago-Kent Professor César Rosado Marzán. With Professor Rosado, she co-authored two articles that will be published in forthcoming books on comparative labor law.

The Peggy Browning Fellowship program was established in memory of Margaret A. "Peggy" Browning, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the National Labor Relations Board in 1994. Ms. Browning, the first union-side labor attorney appointed to the NLRB, served until her death in 1997.

Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. The Program in Labor and Employment Law is the centerpiece of Chicago-Kent's Institute for Law and the Workplace. The program comprises a logical, carefully paced sequence of coursework and practical skills training that provide comprehensive, rigorous preparation for the field of labor and employment law.

Created in 1996, the Institute for Law and the Workplace is a national center for research, training, dialogue, and reflection on the law that governs the workplace. The Institute serves as an intellectual home for the labor and employment law community, both in the Chicago area and nationwide. It pools the resources of leading academic scholars and the practicing professional community to train students and professionals, monitor policies and trends, and reflect upon issues confronting the labor and employment law community in a neutral setting.