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Former arts and letters dean dies

By Kristan Tetens, College of Arts and Letters

Richard E. Sullivan, a widely respected MSU faculty member and administrator who was a leading historian and teacher of the humanities for 34 years, died May 26. He was 84 and had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition.

“Richard Sullivan was a distinguished scholar who had a deep insight into and extraordinary appreciation for the role of the humanities in the land-grant tradition,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “Over the years, I have appreciated and valued his wisdom and guidance, as well as his many contributions to Michigan State as a teacher, scholar and administrator.”

Sullivan joined the MSU faculty in 1954 as an assistant professor of history. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1958 and to full professor in 1961. He received the Distinguished Faculty Award in 1964 in recognition of his sustained record of scholarly excellence in research, teaching and outreach.

In 1966 he was named chairperson of the Department of History, a position he held until 1970, when he was named dean of the College of Arts and Letters. He served as dean until 1979, when he returned to teaching history and humanities. In 1982, he served as acting associate provost for one year. He retired in 1988.

“I was very sad to hear of Richard Sullivan’s passing,” said Patrick McConeghy, acting dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “He was the consummate scholar, an inspiring administrator, and a wonderfully warm and caring human being always at the ready with a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor. From the very beginning of my time here at Michigan State in 1977 I have looked up to Richard as a model of what we as educators and thinkers should strive to become.”

As a historian, Sullivan’s specialty was the history of Western civilization and in particular the period between the decline of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and the beginning of the high Middle Ages in the 11th century. He was among the first American academics to focus on the centuries after the fall of Rome as something other than the “Dark Ages” and to trace the legacy of the Roman Empire in the civilizations that immediately followed it.

He was one of the world’s leading scholars on medieval monasticism and at the time of his death was researching a book on the origins of Christian asceticism.

“He was a scholar to the very end, ” said S. J. Thomas, professor of history. “Setting aside one bedroom of a two-bedroom retirement apartment as an office where he continued to try to keep up with the literature in his field of medieval history.”

Richard Eugene Sullivan was born on March 27, 1921. He held a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois (1949), an AM from the University of Illinois (1947), and an AB from the University of Nebraska (1942).

He is survived by his wife, Vivian “Johnnie” Sullivan; three daughters, Elizabeth Hogg, Katherine Lewis and Mary Newell; and four grandchildren.

A memorial Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 4, at St. Thomas Aquinas, 955 Alton Road, East Lansing. Visitation is from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Arrangements for a campus memorial service are pending. The College of Arts and Letters is collecting written tributes from Sullivan’s colleagues and friends; for more information, visit www.cal.msu.edu