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Rob LaDuca has resigned from his roles as Chair of Faculty Senate, The Steering Committee, and Academic Congress. In a memo to the At-Large Members of The Steering Committee dated December 7, LaDuca cites “a pressing medical issue of a psychiatric nature” as the reason for no longer having “any involvement in Academic Governance for the entire Spring 2019 term.”

Rob LaDuca has resigned from his roles as Chair of Faculty Senate, The Steering Committee, and Academic Congress. In a memo to the At-Large Members of The Steering Committee dated December 7, LaDuca cites “a pressing medical issue of a psychiatric nature” as the reason for no longer having “any involvement in Academic Governance for the entire Spring 2019 term.”

The memo references a previously-unknown November 27 memo in which LaDuca “temporarily ceded” his role to Vice-Chair Deborah Moriarty, a professor in the College of Music. Moriarty will now take over for LaDuca permanently.

Photo via MSU.

LaDuca, a professor and onetime Associate Dean of Lyman Briggs college, often serves as Chair of University Council, though according to the Bylaws for Academic Governance, that responsibility belongs to the President, and to the Provost in the President’s absence.

The departure comes in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment against LaDuca by Joy Lisi Rankin, a former professor in Lyman Briggs College and James Madison College. A 2017 investigation by the Office of Institutional Equity cleared LaDuca of any wrongdoing.

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Tyler Silvestri Tyler Silvestri is a third-year law student at MSU who received his bachelor’s degree in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy from MSU’s James Madison College in 2017. He spent one year as the Assistant Director of ASMSU’s Student Rights Advocates and two years as a Resident Assistant. He is the Chairperson of the University Committee on Academic Governance. He can be reached at Tyler@onthebanksmsu.com. See author's posts