Gretchen Ritter

Biography

Dr. Gretchen Ritter is professor of Government, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Faculty Governance, and the director of the Course Transformation Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Since joining the Provost’s Office in June 2009, Dr. Ritter has launched the Course Transformation Program (to redesign the university’s large, lower division courses), overseen the restructuring of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and created the Council of Academic Support Programs. She is also the former director of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies and former Co-Chair of the Gender Equity Task Force at UT Austin. Ritter received her BS in Government from Cornell University (Distinction in All Subjects) and her PhD in Political Science from MIT. She has published three books as well as numerous articles and essays. Her research focuses on women’s political activism, democratic movements, constitutional law and history, and work-family policy. Her most recent volume is Democratization in America: A Comparative and Historical Perspective, edited by Desmond King, Robert Lieberman, Gretchen Ritter and Laurence Whitehead, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). She is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including a National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship, the Radcliffe Research Partnership Award, and a Liberal Arts Fellowship at Harvard Law School. She has taught at UT Austin, MIT, Princeton, and Harvard.