Edward J. Lawler, dean of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and a scholar of organizational behavior, is the recipient of the 2001 Cooley-Mead Award. The award, which is granted annually by the Social Psychology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), recognizes lifetime contributions to scholarship in social psychology. ASA is the pre-eminent organization of sociology scholars in the United States.

The committee that chose Lawler praised him for his scholarship in the study of power, negotiation, social exchange and group processes. Lawler has written, co-written or edited 15 books and more than 30 articles on those subjects for professional journals. He has served as editor and co-editor of Advances in Group Processes (JAI Press), an ongoing multivolume series of theoretical and empirical work on small-group relationships, and, from 1993 to 1997, he was editor of Social Psychology Quarterly. He and ILR Professor Samuel Bacharach co-wrote Power and Politics in Organizations (Jossey-Bass, 1980) andBargaining: Power, Tactics and Outcomes (Jossey-Bass, 1981). As part of the award ceremony at the ASA annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., this August, Lawler presented a scholarly paper titled "Micro Social Orders: A Social Exchange" that will be published in Social Psychology Quarterly in March 2002.

Lawler joined Cornell's ILR School faculty in 1994 and was named dean in 1997. Before that he was a faculty member for 23 years in the University of Iowa's sociology department and a visiting scholar at the ILR School in 1978, 1981 and 1990. In 1998, under his leadership, the school moved many of its classes, programs and offices into a new, $23 million, 116,000-square-foot teaching facility. In 2000, construction began on phase II of the project: expanded and renovated facilities for the school's library collections, conference center, extension and research programs. Lawler also helped establish the ILR School's Institute for Workplace Studies and Master of Professional Studies program in New York City and strengthened the school's Master of Industrial and Labor Relations program. In addition, he launched Union Days -- a yearly series of workshops and seminars on campus involving union leaders, ILR faculty and students.