Jun 12, 2025

Fireside Chat Sparks ILRie Career

Every day, college students face a series of choices. Some are relatively mundane – like where to have lunch or what seminars to attend – and some are bigger – like which electives to take or what internships to apply to.

For Melanie Stewart ’10 it was one of those seemingly ordinary decisions that has had a lasting positive effect on her life.

It all started at a Fireside Chat event organized by the Minority ILR Student Organization (MILRSO).

Stewart was a sophomore when she made a last-minute decision to attend the event and look for an internship. She recalls having a “great conversation” with the recruiters from ADM – an agricultural supply chain manager and processor – and was chosen to work in their labor relations department that summer.

The next summer, she was invited to return but instead dedicated the summer to studying for the LSAT. “They were very understanding, and they told me to keep in touch,” Stewart said.

Years later, after obtaining her law degree from Howard University and serving as an associate attorney with a law firm, Stewart realized that she wanted to return to the “business side” of labor and employment law, where “there is emphasis on preventative strategy and partnership with the business.”

Considering her options, Stewart contacted ADM, and “lo and behold, they had an opportunity for me to work in their law department.”

“These in-house roles can be pretty coveted by attorneys,” Stewart continued. “And I was able to get a fast track into one because of that Fireside Chat.”

After nearly four years in her role as senior counsel at ADM, Stewart moved into the position of corporate counsel for Gopuff – an instant commerce platform – before an opportunity for her current position as director, senior counsel, employee relations at Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. presented.

“At Stanley Black & Decker, I report to my former ADM manager,” Stewart said. “So, it all trickles back to just attending that Fireside Chat. All the opportunities that I’ve been able to get really have been very directly linked to me being a student at ILR.”

Melanie Stewart ’10 with friends at a restaurant

Melanie Stewart ’10 with friends in traditional culture clothing

large group image of a sorority at a formal

Melanie Stewart ’10 with friends sitting on a concrete wall that says Cornell University

“It really makes me wonder,” Stewart said. “What if I didn’t go to that Fireside Chat? How would my career be different?”

Stewart (right) and newfound relative Evan Reynolds ’19, both sporting their Greek bucket hats.

FOUND FAMILY

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, Melanie Stewart ’10, like most Americans, decided to pursue a new hobby.

Instead of making sourdough, hopping on a Peloton, or playing video games, Stewart traced her family tree.

“Tracing African-American ancestry can be an overwhelming and challenging pursuit – and most research efforts fall short at the point of slavery,” Stewart wrote in a first-person account featured in Cornellians.

Despite the challenge, Stewart found ancestors – Mary Reynolds and her husband, John Goode – who were early settlers of a historically Black town called Promised Land, South Carolina. They owned land there and were activists for equal rights just a few years after being emancipated from slavery.

Not only that, but descendants of Mary and John – Rodney Reynolds ’76 and his son Evan Reynolds ’19 – are fellow Cornellians.

“I was amazed,” Stewart said of the discovery. “I had no idea I had any relatives who went to Cornell, and now we keep in touch. In fact, Evan is getting his Ph.D. at Northwestern, and I’m in Chicago, so we get together, and it’s great.

“It’s just a really small world.”

While the Fireside Chat has been the throughline of her career, Stewart credits ILR with providing her with the knowledge, background and connections needed to be a success at every stop along the way. In fact, she has worked with several ILRies who have been instrumental in her career development.

Reflecting on her time as an ILR student, Stewart said that her Organizational Behavior class, taught by Professor Tove Hammer, “opened my eyes” to different areas of business and “required me to stretch myself,” while her Labor and Employment Law class, taught by Professor Kate Griffith, solidified her desire to go to law school.

“That class taught me how to analyze the facts and to apply the legal standards and I’ve used that daily in my current role,” Stewart said.

“We did a lot of case studies, and a lot of drafting of memos, and those skills served me well when I went to law school, and after I graduated and went to work for a law firm.”

Finally, a Latin American labor movement course, taught by Professor Maria Lorena Cook, has begun to pay dividends 15 years later, as Stewart recently began supporting HR teams in Mexico at Stanley Black & Decker.

“Understanding the labor movements there and how closely they correlate to the way their laws are structured has served me well, and in a way that I don’t think I would have understood if not for that class,” Stewart said. “And I just took it because it seemed interesting. I didn’t know that I would ever use it in my career.”

Outside of academics, some in Stewart’s ILRie friend group are also lawyers, and they often “bounce ideas off each other,” speak regularly about court cases that apply to their practice areas and share career advice.

“One of the things, outside of an academic setting, that I enjoyed about ILR is the connections and friendships that I’ve been able to make,” Stewart said. “The relationships that I’ve been able to establish from ILR have been very enriching, not just academically, but also personally.”