I’m posting this because some comments have already addressed it: EMU-AAUP President Susan Moeller sent around an email today about soon to be former Assistant VP for Academic HR Don Ritzenhein:
The EMU-AAUP has been informed that Assistant Vice President of Academic Human Resources, Don Ritzenhein, will be stepping down from his administrative position and will be returning to faculty on August 24th.
This fall he will start teaching in the Department of Communications, Media, and Theater Arts where he is a tenured full professor. Don joined EMU as the head of AHR in July 2010 and was the administration’s chief negotiator. Previously he was the Provost at Macomb Community College.
We welcome Don back to faculty and appreciate the work he did on the faculty’s behalf over the last year.
His departure from the Provost’s office means that Jim Carroll, the new interim Associate Provost, will be the only staff person left in the office at this time. We assume he will be our EMU-AAUP and faculty contact person starting August 16th, until otherwise notified – his phone number is 487-2246 and his email address is jcarroll@emich.edu
Two thoughts for now:
- I don’t know anything more about this than what’s in that email, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never met Don. For all I know, he really did resign because he wants to go back into the classroom, etc. But it seems kind of odd that someone who has been in administrative careers for most of his life would leave this one after just about a year in that job.
- I’ll be kind of curious to find out what Ritzenhein and Kay are going to be teaching next year. That CTA department is getting pretty crowded….

