Michael Flusche, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Syracuse University, has announced that he will retire in May 2006, at the end of the spring semester.
Flusche has served as associate vice chancellor under three Chancellors-Melvin A. Eggers, Kenneth A. Shaw and Nancy Cantor-and Vice Chancellors Gershon Vincow and Deborah A. Freund, in the process becoming a pillar of the University community for his selfless service to the faculty and their interests and for his leadership in countless high-priority, University-level assignments.
"Michael epitomizes the idea of the 'go-to guy,'" says Vice Chancellor and Provost Freund. "He has been a steadfast colleague who has never blinked at a tough assignment-I've given him more than a few-and he always delivers 1,000 percent. He has more than earned a blissful retirement, but we will dearly miss him."
Chief among Flusche's duties has been the day-to-day handling of general faculty matters, including the approval of all faculty appointment letters, leaves of absence and adjustments to tenure probation period. He has also handled faculty grievances and advised faculty members, deans and chairs on personnel issues. He was the chief architect of the highly successful voluntary Supported Resignation Program in the early 1990s that enabled more than 200 tenured faculty members to retire in a time frame that helped the University quickly reduce its payroll and thereby balance its budget.
Over the years, Flusche has demonstrated his enthusiasm and support for the faculty by leading the creation of numerous programs that reward outstanding faculty scholarship and teaching. In particular, he has been instrumental in implementing the Meredith Professors for Teaching Excellence program. He also helped establish the Seinfeld Distinguished Fellowship and has coordinated the selection process for the Chancellor's Citation for Excellence.
Flusche is well known to new members of the faculty as the coordinator of the successful New Faculty Orientation Program, featuring the popular Progressive Dinner, which for the past nine years has introduced new faculty members and their partners to the campus as well as to their new colleagues. Department chairs know him as the coordinator of the innovative department chairs leadership development program.
"I am very fortunate to have spent 35 years at Syracuse University doing what I love with people whom I admire and respect. How lucky can one guy be?" says Flusche. "I hope I have made a difference."
As director of the University Lectures, Flusche has taken the lead in establishing and coordinating this highly successful program, which has brought to SU such distinguished speakers as Denyce Graves, Garrison Keillor, Rem Koolhaas, David McCullough, George Mitchell, William Safire, David Satcher and August Wilson.
For the last seven years, Flusche has been responsible for coordinating the Academic Space Plan, a University-wide initiative to address academic space requirements. He chaired the all-University committee that set the planning and budget framework for this initiative and worked directly with space planning consultants Dober, Lidsky, Craig Associates. More recently he has stimulated fresh thinking about the physical environment of the campus and how the campus can better support the mission of the University. His 2005 Webcast on the "Intentional Campus" attracted the largest audience that the Society of College and University Planners had experienced to date.
"Mike Flusche is the gentleman diplomat of the University," says Carole
Brzozowski, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. "Everything he does, he does with a sense of true humanitarianism and grace and intellect, and it's hard to imagine being here without him."
Other University-level responsibilities have included coordination of a University-wide self-study process for Middle States regional accreditation in 1988 and in 1998. He currently is an advisor for the upcoming Middle States self-study due in 2008. In addition, he has frequently served as an accreditation team member for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, a reader for Periodic Review Reports, and an accreditation team member for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
Flusche joined the University in 1970 as a history instructor and was soon promoted to assistant and associate professorships in that department. Before becoming associate vice chancellor in 1986, he served as associate dean in The College of Arts and Sciences (1979-86). He also has been a visiting lecturer in history at Sheffield University, England (1974-75). While serving as associate vice chancellor, Flusche has remained active in the classroom by teaching a section of the Freshman Forum (CAS 101).
A magna cum laude graduate of Spring Hill College, Spring Hill, Ala., with an A.B. degree in history, Flusche completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at Johns Hopkins University.
