Rutgers-New Brunswick Appoints New Dean to School of Management and Labor Relations

Mark Anner, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, assumes role from Adrienne Eaton

Mark Anner, an internationally recognized scholar of workers’ rights in supply chains and an accomplished higher education administrator, has been appointed dean for the School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.

Anner, who assumes the role Sept. 1, comes to Rutgers from Pennsylvania State University as a professor of labor and employment relations and political science, a position he has held since 2005. He is the founding director of Penn State’s Center for Global Workers’ Rights and the university’s master of professional studies in labor and global workers’ rights program.

“Anner is an ideal choice to lead SMLR, which is the leading source of expertise on the world of work, building effective and sustainable organizations, and the changing employment relationship,” said Rutgers–New Brunswick Chancellor Francine Conway.

The Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations is home to research that has informed New Jersey’s earned sick leave and paid family leave laws; produced scholarship about disability and employment; hosts the world’s first academic research center dedicated to the study of capital shares, a key driver of wealth for the middle class, women and people of color; and offers the nation’s only science, technology, engineering and mathematics-designated human resources graduate program.

“I am honored to join the distinguished faculty and the outstanding students and staff of the School of Management and Labor Relations,” said Anner, who holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University and a master’s degree in Latin American studies from Stanford University. “I look forward to contributing to the Rutgers mission of social justice by nurturing a collective endeavor to make the world of work a better place for us all.”

He is the author of more than 75 academic publications, including work that has appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, International Organization, Journal of Business Ethics, Politics & Society and Review of International Political Economy.

Anner is a recipient of the Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award, the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award, the Luis Aparicio Emerging Scholar Prize, the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching, and three Penn State Liberal Arts Research Appreciation Awards for number of external grants and years of consecutive external funding.

Before his academic career, he lived for 12 years in Central America and Brazil, and he has conducted extended research visits to Bangladesh, India, Mexico and Vietnam.

Anner will succeed Adrienne Eaton, who will step down after completing seven years of service as the dean of SMLR and assisted in the nationwide search that recruited Anner, and will remain at Rutgers and SMLR as a faculty member.

Eaton, a Distinguished Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations who remains active in research, has led the establishment of diversity initiatives including the formation of SMLR’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, the creation of the position of associate dean for DEI and the creation and implementation of the school’s DEI Strategic Plan.

She has led SMLR to regularly exceed its goals in development, including by securing SMLR’s first multimillion-dollar legacy gift; two large, endowed scholarship funds; and more than $10 million between 2020 and 2022.