Ritter reminisces at Reunion

Gretchen Ritter
Andy Sosa '83
Gretchen Ritter

Soon-to-be dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Gretchen Ritter ’83 got the chance to share some thoughts with her class during Reunion 2013.

Ritter was the featured speaker for her class’s 30th reunion dinner June 7. She reminisced about snowstorms, Slope Day and “those unattractive West Campus dorms, which no longer exist, where we formed great friendships that have lasted a lifetime.”

Ritter, professor of government and vice provost for undergraduate education and faculty governance at the University of Texas at Austin, will begin her new job Aug. 1. She is the college’s first woman dean and its first externally hired dean.

“Being on this campus with all of you also makes me feel profoundly grateful – for the superb education we received; an education that gave us broad knowledge and experience and rewarded our curiosity,” Ritter told her classmates.

She shared memories of history professor Walter LaFeber, who attracted more than 1,000 students to his American Foreign Policy class, where he “would come in, put a brief outline on the chalkboard, then sit on a table and talk for the next hour. Over that timeframe – quietly and without notes – he would weave an amazing narrative that brought history alive.”

Ritter closed with the wish President Emeritus Frank Rhodes gave at the Class of ’83 commencement: “May the friendships of these Cornell years endure for a lifetime. And may you come back to Ithaca often for refreshment and renewal.”

- Kathy Hovis