Michael Ristich, Academic Specialist in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures, was appointed Director of the Citizen Scholars Program, effective Jan. 1, 2024.
The Citizen Scholars Program, which is open to first- and second-year students with a major in the College of Arts & Letters, is designed to prepare the next generation of diverse, high-achieving, and engaged citizen leaders. The program empowers students to embrace difference, deliberate publicly, think critically, and engage global and local partners to effect sustainable positive change. Students in the program are encouraged to succeed academically while gaining experience in high-impact learning environments.
“Our students recognize that the world needs the arts and humanities now more than ever,” Ristich said. “As the Director, I am eager to work with our Citizen Scholars to find and create ways for them to use their education in the arts and humanities to take on pressing, real-world problems.”
Ristich has taught many courses across the Citizen Scholars Program as well as across the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures and the Center of Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities program. In addition to researching curriculum design and effective teaching, his work focuses on the intersections of rhetorical and critical theory.
As the Citizen Scholars Director, Ristich provides administrative oversight of this unique program and strategizes and plans for current and future growth as well as implements and promotes curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular opportunities for Citizen Scholars. He also works to recruit students to the program and recruits and coordinates faculty teaching and mentoring associated with the Citizen Scholars’ curriculum.
“As the Director, I am eager to work with our Citizen Scholars to find and create ways for them to use their education in the arts and humanities to take on pressing, real-world problems.”
“Having taught in the program during its inaugural years, I know the Citizen Scholars Program well,” Ristich said. “Over the years, I have seen our Citizen Scholars conduct important research, travel the world via our study abroad opportunities, and occupy important leadership positions on campus and beyond. And, as the new Director, I’m excited to work with our campus partners, College of Arts & Letters leadership, and alums to increase research, scholarship, and study abroad opportunities for our students.”
Before his appointment as Director of the Citizen Scholars Program, Ristich was the Online Curriculum Coordinator and member of the administrative team for MSU’s First-Year Writing Program, which was recognized in 2022-2023 as a national model of excellence by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). This award is one of the largest and most influential in the field of composition and rhetoric.
In 2020, Ristich received the #iteachmsu Educator Award from MSU’s Office of the Provost. He received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University in 2013. He also received a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in 2005.
