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SSU Dean Timothy Scheurer announced his retirement last week. Scheurer has been with the university since 2001.

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RYAN SCOTT OTTNEY

PDT Staff Writer

Dr. Timothy Scheurer, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Shawnee State University, has announced his plans to retire next year.

After completing graduate school at Bowling Green, Scheurer began his career at Franklin University, in Columbus, in 1977 and left in 2001 to become chairperson of the Department of English and Humanities at Shawnee State University. In 2006 he left the English Department to accept his current job as dean. In addition to his administrative duties, he also teaches a course a year covering a variety of subjects such as Adolescent Literature, American Poetry, Organizational Communication, and British Literature.

Scheurer delivered his retirement to SSU President Rita Rice Morris three-weeks ago and announced it to his faculty last week and it was taken to the University Board of Trustees on Friday. His retirement will begin in June of 2013.

He plans to return to Columbus, where his wife and family have lived all-along while he commuted to Portsmouth, and will spend his retirement writing. He already has ideas for stories, plays and musicals.

“After I finished my last scholarly book, I told my staff that was enough of that. For 30-some odd years I’ve been cranking out heavy duty research, and I turned my attention to more creative writing. That’s when I discovered playwriting,” Scheurer said.

Earlier this year, Scheurer wrote a play titled, “Tax Time,” which was presented at the Third Annual One Act Play Festival at the Pend Oreille Playhouse in Newport, Wash., on July 13.

“That was just about enough to say, ‘You know, I probably could do something like this’. And I told the family ideas were starting to pile up, but I didn’t have the time to do them. So I’ll be doing that, and all the normal things one does in retirement. A little bit more relaxing and playing some golf. Stuff like that,” he said.

In July, Scheurer was named interim director of the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts, while the university searches for a permanent director. He said he was enjoying the job, but he is not interested in doing it permanently.

“It really is not my area of expertise. I’ve read about nine resumes, and I think four more came before the cut-off of Oct. 1, so I’m looking at those resumes and I’m going, ‘these people are really qualified to be doing this’,” he laughed. “There’s got to be somebody that’s as good or better than (former director Carl Daehler). I would say that of any position, including my position. I trust they’re going to get somebody as good, if not better.”

Scheurer is also a member of the Portsmouth Public Library Board of Directors, and President of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra Board of Directors. He said will be leaving both organizations when he returns to Columbus upon retirement.

Ryan Scott Ottney can be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 235, or rottney@heartlandpublications.com.