UA Press chief Szuter is leaving to teach at ASU

Christine Szuter, 56, will resign as director of University of Arizona Press on Friday to lead ASU's Scholarly Publishing Certificate program.

The ASU program teaches graduate students how to succeed in the field of higher-education publishing, and the post brings Szuter's career back to where it began: the classroom.

Szuter, an associate professor in anthropology at the UA, was an academic before she moved into publishing.

She spent 17 years at the UA Press, and was director for nearly a decade.

"Everything has come full circle," she said. "I started out as an academic, moved into publishing and now I'm headed back to teaching."

Szuter said she hadn't been looking for a new job but added that the position at ASU should give her a new challenge.

UA Press, founded in 1959, publishes scholarly works from around the world and has established a reputation for putting out books that highlight underrepresented voices, including American Indians and Latinos.

The publications' niche market has well served the UA and the diverse community of the Southwest, Szuter said.

"To me, the fact that we started out publishing Native American voices well before many publishers thought to enter that arena shows that we have been representing the community," she said. "It was a hard decision to leave a job I love, but it's great to have changes and new perspectives."

Kathryn Conrad, who currently serves as the UA Press sales and marketing manager, will become interim director of the program.