NEWS

CHAPEL HILL – Dr. Robert S. Adler has been named the associate dean of the MBA Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School effective July 1.

"UNC is fortunate to have Bob Adler serving in this important leadership role," said Dr. Robert S. Sullivan, Kenan-Flagler dean. "His enormous integrity and high standards for excellence have earned the respect of faculty and students. He will be a passionate and committed leader."

Adler is a management professor at Kenan-Flagler, where he teaches courses in ethics, negotiation, business law and consumer protection.

In the MBA Program, he has coordinated the required ethics course and conducts workshops on team building, leadership and negotiation. He served as associate dean for the school’s bachelor of science in business administration program from 1994-98. He won a university wide teaching award, the Tanner Award, in 1996 and the undergraduate program's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990.

Adler conducts research in negotiation, product safety, product liability, regulation, commercial law, medical malpractice and negotiation. His article, "When David Meets Goliath: Dealing With Power Differentials in Negotiation," written with Elliot Silverstein and published in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review in 2000, received the best article award from the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.

He serves on the board of directors of the Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

He received a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and is a member of the North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., bars. He is cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Adler worked as an attorney in a variety of roles before he came to Kenan-Flagler in 1987. He was deputy attorney general for the Pennsylvania Justice Department, where he headed its southwest regional office of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. He spent nine years as an attorney-adviser to two commissioners on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in Washington, D.C. He also served as counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce. While on the subcommittee, he worked on legislation on product liability, childhood vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration, medical malpractice and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He also helped staff hearings on drug pricing policies and smoking issues.

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Note: Adler can be reached at 919-962-3156, bob_adler@unc.edu.

Kenan-Flagler Business School contact: Kim Spurr 919-962-8951, spurrk@unc.edu