Dr. Tilden Edelstein, serving his third year as Wayne State University vice president for academic affairs, has announced his retirement by the end of the current academic year.

Edelstein, who notified the university's deans and his staff in academic affairs yesterday, said his age and the recent appointment of a new president made him "stop and think about the rest of my life." He has served in higher education administrative posts for 25 years.

"I'm turning 67 in June, moving toward retirement and looking forward to some changes," he said.

Edelstein will continue as vice president until June or later if a successor has not yet been identified. He will then take a yearlong administrative leave as a professor of history during his final year.

He said he was not quite sure how he would spend that year and that he may or may not teach a class or two.

Edelstein came to WSU in 1995 from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, where he was professor of history.

Earlier he was acting president, provost and executive vice president at SUNY and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick campus.

His academic interests include civil war and reconstruction, African-American history, American studies and American intellectual history.