Alumni Spotlight: Mac Barreca

Name: Mac Barreca
 
What year did you graduate from ILR?
I am a recent alum of the ILR School. I graduated in May of 2020 with my BS ILR and a minor in Law and Society. Since graduating I have been exploring a lot of different fields and activities from federal law enforcement to coaching high school football.
 
What Scheinman activities did you participate in?
While I was in ILR I was very involved with the Scheinman Institute. My junior year I received a fellowship from the Institute to do a credit internship at the NLRB in DC, working as an investigator. 
 
I served as the Director of Education for the Scheinman Conflict Resolution Club. I also worked as a student mediator through the campus mediation program, and when I graduated I held the record for most mediations done by a single student. The course is amazing and very few experiences like it exist in the whole country. I was twice nominated for and once awarded the Dean David Lipsky Award for Excellence in Conflict Resolution.
 
Memorable education experiences:
I took a number of Conflict Resolution courses across various fields: Advanced Issues in Mediation, the Dispute Resolution Practicum, and Campus Mediation Practicum I and II all with Rocco Scanza and the latter two co-taught by Katrina Nobles. I also took Managing and Resolving Conflict with Ariel Avgar in addition to the core Labor Relations class taught by Professor Avgar. Throughout many of those classes I was also able to use the skills in practical exercises like mediation and arbitration scrimmages, or mediating real-world cases of students breaking the Campus Code of Conduct.
 
Advice you would give to students interested in the field:
If I could share any advice with new students considering Alternative Dispute Resolution as a path of study, it would be to just talk to one person from the Scheinman Institute. Whether it’s a faculty member, an involved student, or even an advisory board member, I can almost guarantee that you will come out of the conversation interested and excited to learn more.