Loyola University Chicago established the Institute of Social and Industrial Relations in 1941. Loyola became one of the first institutions of higher learning to offer a comprehensive program combining theoretical studies and practical training in industrial relations and personnel management.
The founder and first director of the institute was the Rev. Ralph A. Gallagher, S.J., nationally-known sociologist and chairman of the Department of Sociology at Loyola. Fr. Gallagher saw a tremendous need for trained people in personnel work.
Today’s Institute of Human Resources and Employment Relations remains committed to its core mission of advancing the field of HR management. The Institute continues to hold to core values embedded in Catholic Social Teaching that uphold workers’ rights and ethical business practices.
About Catholic Social Thought
Rerum Novarum - Workers are not to be treated as slaves; justice demands that the dignity of human personality be respected in them, ennobled as it has been through what we call the Christian character. If we hearken to natural reason and to Christian philosophy, gainful occupations are not a mark of shame to man, but rather of respect, as they provide him with an honorable means of sup-porting life. It is shameful and inhuman, however, to use men as things for gain and to put no more value on them than what they are worth in muscle and energy. -Encyclical Letter on the Condition of Labor by Pope Leo XIII, 1891
