Michael Childers

BS in Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; MS and PhD in Workforce Education & Development, SIU Carbondale. Michael joined the School for Workers after completing his graduate degrees and post-doctorate fellowship and brings diverse management and engineering experience from a wide variety of industries, including basic steel, machining, metal fabrication, and plastics manufacturing. In addition to steward, bargaining, financial officer, and leadership courses, Michael’s teaching interests include industrial engineering topics such as time study, production standards, lean production, job evaluation, and incentive & gainsharing pay systems. He also assists unions to be more effective in utilizing technology, including teaching computer skills and internet research.

On campus, Michael has taught Labor-Management Relations for the Wisconsin School of Business for the last decade. In 2018 he was honored as a University of Wisconsin System Teaching Scholar, and in 2019 became a fellow in the UW-Madison Teaching Academy for demonstrating excellence in teaching and a commitment to improving the quality of teaching and learning across campus. He serves on the executive committees of both the Teaching Academy and Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious interdisciplinary honor society for students in the top 10% of their class.

What students are saying…

“Michael is an amazing professor! He has relevant materials, know-how, and great experience.”

“I just wanted to take some time to thank you for this semester! It was clear you care about your students and I knew this from the first day… I spoke to many students in the class and they all appreciated it more than you know. We don’t get professors like you often!”

“Michael did a terrific job drawing on real world experiences and working with students to share solutions with each other.”

“Michael is easy to listen to and really took the time to answer any questions.”