Russell Andrew Smith, Edson R. Sunderland Professor of Law and prime authority in the field of labor law, is retiring from the active faculty by special dispensation at the age of sixty-five.

A native of Iowa, Professor Smith was graduated from Grinnell College in 1929. For two years he taught mathematics-prefiguring the precision of mind, which he was to bring to the law. He then entered the Michigan Law School, from which he was graduated with distinction, and to which, after three years of legal practice in New York, he returned as Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1940 and Professor in 1946. During World War II, he was a labor-relations attorney for the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. From 1946 to 1956, he served as Secretary of the Law School; and from 1957 to 1962, as Associate Dean of the Law School and as Co-Director of the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. In 1968 he was named to the endowed professorship, which he now relinquishes.

Being at once versatile and energetic, Professor Smith distinguished himself in legal scholarship, performed yeoman services for his School and the University, and also entered actively into the discussion and disposition of public affairs in his field. He has taken part in local city government, investigated labor issues of importance to the state, and served on commissions and boards of the national government treating of mediation and labor law. He further chaired the labor-law section of the state bar and presided over the American Arbitration Association. His casebook, Labor Relations Law, has passed through four editions. His current major research is in public-employee relations, a topic of lively concern to this and other state universities.

Professor Smith's colleagues are grateful for his faithful and genial service and respectful of his public accomplishments and fame. The Regents of the University, who now appoint him Professor Emeritus of Law, add a personal need of grateful praise, and cordially invite him to sustain his associations with the School, which he has served so well.