Gretchen Ritter has been appointed vice chancellor, provost, and chief academic officer at Syracuse University in New York. She will take on her new duties on October 1.
“New York is home to me and has played such a profound role in shaping my life — both personally and professionally,” Dr. Ritter said. “To have the opportunity to serve in leadership at one of the most prestigious universities in my home state is truly a dream come to fruition. I look forward to working with faculty, leadership, students, and staff at a time when Syracuse University is poised to achieve even higher levels of excellence.”
Since 2019, Dr. Ritter has been serving as executive dean and vice provost for the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University. In 2013, Dr. Ritter was appointed the 21st dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She was the first woman to hold the position.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Ritter was a professor of government and vice provost for undergraduate education at the University of Texas at Austin. She first joined the faculty at the Austin campus in 1992. From 2004 to 2009, she was the director of the university’s Center for Women’s and Gender Studies.
Professor Ritter is the author of two books: Goldbugs and Greenbacks: The Antimonopoly Tradition and the Politics of Finance in America, 1865-1896 (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and The Constitution As Social Design: Gender And Civic Membership in the American Constitutional Order (Stanford University Press, 2006). She is one of several editors of Democratization in America: A Comparative and Historical Perspective (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).
Dr. Ritter is a graduate of Cornell University, where she majored in government. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.