From Learning to Leading

After decades of supporting students and cultivating their communities, two Oakland University alumni and longtime leaders of partner school districts are retiring.

Ron Roberts, Ph.D. (SEHS ’77) and Jim Schwarz, Ph.D. (SEHS ’91, ’94, ’97 and ’10), recently stepped down from their roles as superintendents of Chippewa Valley Schools and the Avondale School District, respectively, at the end of the 2025-26 school year. Both men’s storied careers — which spanned 48 years for Dr. Roberts and 35 for Dr. Schwarz — reflect an unwavering commitment to public education, including efforts to strengthen partnerships between their respective districts and OU’s teacher education programs.

Jim Schwarz

For Schwarz, a four-time graduate of the School of Education and Human Services, that connection to OU remained a consistent thread throughout his career. He says he “never felt like a number” as a student, an experience that shaped his longstanding relationship with the university.

“Even when the university got bigger, that element of personalized education stayed,” Schwarz said. “It was really that culture that I thrived in, that made me want to continue my education here.”

Ron Roberts

Similarly, Roberts — who transferred to OU for his undergraduate studies in 1974 — said his time as a Golden Grizzly helped lay the foundation for his nearly five-decade career in Chippewa Valley Schools.

“I felt well prepared to pursue my career in education,” Roberts said. “Then, as I went through my career, so many of our teachers came from Oakland, and that was important to me. We always said that there were certain universities where we felt the teachers were more prepared, and Oakland was one of them.”

Those experiences later informed both men’s commitment to leveraging their leadership roles to build strong relationships between their districts and their alma mater. During their tenures as superintendents — 15 years for Roberts and 12 for Schwarz — they championed experiential learning opportunities for OU teacher education students through student teaching placements and embedded coursework in their districts.

That commitment took shape through immersive partnerships with both districts that placed OU teacher candidates directly in classrooms alongside district educators. Over the past two years, OU placed 50 student teachers in Chippewa Valley Schools and 60 in the Avondale School District.

At Avondale, the partnership also extended to embedded coursework in which OU faculty and district educators co-teach literacy and math courses entirely onsite. The model — which Schwarz describes as “the best of both worlds” — enables teacher candidates to complete portions of their coursework in schools while applying instructional strategies in real time with K-12 students.

“It’s the relationships that the university has afforded, both individually and as a team, to schools that has really kept me coming back as a professional [and] as a student,” Schwarz said. “That has been unlike anywhere else.”

In addition to facilitating hands-on learning opportunities for OU students in their districts, both Roberts and Schwarz serve their alma mater as members of SEHS’ Resource Development Board, which helps advance the school’s mission through community engagement, mentorship, advocacy and support for future initiatives.

“If you’re going to be educators, you’ve just got to love what you do, and I think you have to be mission-driven,” Roberts said. “You have to be doing this to make a difference, and that’s it, because if you don’t go in it for that reason, you will not be happy … If people go into it for the right reasons, it’s an incredibly rewarding career.”

Both men credit their enduring connection to the university to the formative mentorship they received as students, which shaped their leadership philosophies by emphasizing accessibility, relationship-building and individualized instruction. Schwarz cited faculty fixtures, including Eric Follo, Bill Keane, Dyanne Tracy, Rod Righter and Julia Smith — the latter of whom still teaches in Pawley Hall — while Roberts pointed to the lasting influence of Dorsey Hammond.

Those same values continue to guide their perspectives on public education today.

“I have a lot of hope for the future,” Roberts said. “I think kids are inherently good and they want to achieve, they want to excel, they want to have meaningful lives. They want to have people in their lives that care about them and that they can have a relationship with.”

Schwarz also reflected on the deeper purpose of education, emphasizing the role educators play in enriching the lives of students and helping them find purpose and opportunity.

“Never underestimate the influence that you have on students — or adults even, for that matter,” Schwarz said. “You carry a lot of influence, and how you use that influence is critical. You could use it for good or you could use it for evil … and that influence, if you’re able to channel it in a way that is not self-serving, is what makes the world a better place.”