Robert Stewart Smith, professor and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell University, has been named acting dean of the school. The appointment was effective Jan. 16.

Smith will serve in that capacity until ILR School Dean Edward Lawler returns from leave in June. Lawler is currently a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif. He was named dean last semester to replace David B. Lipsky, who left the post Jan. 15 to return to the faculty and direct the ILR School's Institute on Conflict Resolution.

"The ILR School is extremely fortunate to be able to call on Robert Smith to serve as acting dean," said Cornell Provost Don M. Randel. "Smith, who has served in this capacity before, is an effective and admired administrator, scholar and teacher whose stewardship of the ILR School will make for a seamless transition in the leadership."

An expert in labor markets and job safety, Smith is co-principal investigator, with ILR Associate Dean Ron Seeber, of a study on New York's workers' compensation managed care program. He is coauthor, with ILR Professor and Cornell Vice President Ronald Ehrenberg, of Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy (Addison Wesley Longman, 1997).

Smith joined Cornell in 1974, chaired the Department of Labor Economics from 1982 to 1985 and was named associate dean in 1988. He served as acting dean of the ILR School for three months in 1993.

Smith is a member of the American Economic Association and the Industrial Relations Research Association and has served on the editorial boards of such publications as Industrial and Labor Relations Review, American Economic Review and Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations.

Smith earned a bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College (1962), a master's from Harvard University (1966) and a doctorate from Stanford University (1971).