Ritter Discusses Life/Work Balance as Albion College’s Gerstacker Visiting Executive
Monday, March 6, 2006

ALBION, Mich. — With fresh look at the Protestant work ethic and its implications for wage earners and life builders, William “Bill” Ritter, ’62, presents “Having a Life While Making a Living” on Tuesday, March 7, at 7 p.m. in the College’s Baldwin Hall. Ritter’s presentation is sponsored by the College’s Carl A. Gerstacker Liberal Arts Institute in Professional Management, where Ritter is serving as the current Gerstacker Visiting Executive in Residence.

This presentation, Ritter explains, will “explore pragmatic issues that surface at the intersections of calling and career, home and workplace, along with leisure and labor. Working models of accommodation will be featured, complete with testimonies of trial and successes.”

Ritter, an author, Albion College trustee, and pastor emeritus at First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, is spending a lot of time in Albion these days. Along with his Gerstacker appointment, Ritter is the College’s inaugural Joe H. Stroud Visiting Scholar for the Gerald R. Ford Institute for Public Policy and Service.

Along with giving three public addresses this semester, Ritter is teaching a special seminar on “Religion, Ethics and Politics” for upper-level Ford and Gerstacker institute students.

Ritter’s final lecture of the semester will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 12, in the Gerstacker International House Auditorium when Ritter discusses "The Damages of Dispensationalism,” an examination of the popularity of, and the ideas behind, the “Left Behind” book series.

Along with giving three public addresses this semester, Ritter is teaching a special seminar on “Religion, Ethics and Politics” for upper-level Ford and Gerstacker institute students.

Ritter’s final lecture of the semester will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 12, in the Gerstacker International House Auditorium when Ritter discusses "The Damages of Dispensationalism,” an examination of the popularity of, and the ideas behind, the “Left Behind” book series.

A graduate of Yale Divinity School, Ritter retired in 2005 after a 42-year career in pastoral ministry with the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church. He served parishes in Dearborn, Livonia, and Farmington Hills before becoming senior minister at the First United Methodist Church of Birmingham in 1993. He is a visiting professor at Duke Divinity School, where he taught last fall.

This is the inaugural year for the Joe H. Stroud Visiting Scholar Program, which honors the memory of the late Joe H. Stroud, who served as the director of the Gerald R. Ford Institute from 1999 until his passing in 2002.

These presentations are all free and open to the public. For more information, email the Gerstacker Institute or call 517-629-0418.
 

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