Ronald A. Crutcher

Miami University from 1965-69: Music and German Major
Received a Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation Fellowship to study at Yale University: received master's and doctorate degrees
Fulbright to Germany where I studied in Cologne, Bonn, and Frankfurt.
Lived in Germany from 1972 until 1977: taught at the Bonn Music School and was Principal Cellist of the Chur Coelnisches Kammerorchester
Returned to the USA in 1977 for a position as Assistant Professor of Music at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro as Assistant Professor of Music in 1979. Was promoted and tenured there and began my administrative career there as Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in 1988.
Married Betty Neal Crutcher in November of 1979.
Our daughter, Sara Elizabeth, arrived in 1984. I took a leave-of-absence from the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra(I was Associate Principal Cello), so that I would have more time to assist Betty with Sara.
Left UNCG for the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1990. Appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Conservatory.
Moved to the University of Texas at Austin as the first Director of the School of Music and the Hall Endowed Professor of Music in 1994.
Moved to Miami University as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs in 1999.
Appointed President of Wheaton College in MA in February 2004. Stepped down after 10 years in 2014 and spent a sabbatical year in Berlin, German.
Elected the 10th President of the University of Richmond in February 2015 and began on July 1, 2015.
I stepped down as President in August 2021 (a year before the end of my 2-year extension due to COVID). Following a two-year sabbatical, I returned to the University of Richmond as President Emeritus and University Professor. Ibteach one course each semester: a first-year seminar in music and an upper-class seminar in leadership in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies.

During my junior and senior years at Woodward, I played in the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. This was my first professional music position, and I had to join the Musician's Union in order to sign the contract. The Philharmonic practiced in the evenings, as it was a semi-professional orchestra (that is not all of its members were full-time musicians). I would ride to the rehearsals with Max Rabinowitz, who was at the time associate concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony. He would pick me up in front of Woodward.

On one particular evening of a Dayton Phil concert, I had a dress rehearsal for a play at Woodward. I had brought my tails with me, so at the end of the dress rehearsal I changed clothes and walked outside to meet Max. As I walked through the doors of the concert hall in Dayton, I noticed that everyone I encountered appeared to be staring at me; and I could not understand why. However, once I got downstairs to the dressing rooms and looked in the mirror I realized that I still had on heavy makeup from the dress rehearsal! Needless to say, I ran to the men's room and washed it off!!!