He immediately enrolled in a graduate program at
Kent State University and so impressed the chairman of the Sociology department,
James T. Laing, that he was given a teaching position in 1947, taking over from former faculty member Harley Preston. He was working as a full-time faculty member, something that was quite unusual for a graduate student. During the summer of 1947 he attended the
Yale Institute of Alcoholic Studies on a scholarship and earned enough transferable credits to graduate from Kent State that summer. His master's thesis, "A Sociological Analysis of Alcoholics Anonymous," was published in the
Yale Quarterly Journal of Alcoholic Studies. By fall 1947, Ritchie was appointed full-time faculty member in the Sociology Department, then located in
Lowry Hall. This appointment made him the first African-American faculty member at a predominantly white university in the state of Ohio. University president Bowman, liberal as he may have been in making Ritchie's appointment to the faculty, considered the
NAACP to be "a radical organization", and refused to allow the students to form a local chapter in 1954. The university had its own discriminatory housing policies, which Ritchie fought and eventually forced the university to change in 1963. The Sociology and English departments led the way by protesting and threatening to walk out, finally prevailing. Ritchie received a scholarship to the Yale Institute of Alcoholic Studies. He was awarded the Julius Rosenwald Scholarship in 1948, which is given "solely for the well-being of mankind." He was the first Kent State graduate to win this award. He also received the
Guggenheim Award awarded to graduate students for advanced study. While pursuing his doctorate, Ritchie took a year off from Kent State and studied at the University of Wisconsin after which, in 1949, he resumed his academic duties and he gave the Scholarship Day address in May 1952. Ritchie received his PhD in sociology from New York University in 1958. His dissertation was titled "Male Delinquents' Assessments of an Industrial School: A Study of the Relationship between Assessments and Length of Residence." Shortly before his death, he was elected by his colleagues to the chairmanship of the Sociology Department. Ritchie worked with a number of the Greek organizations on campus as an adviser, including
Kappa Alpha Psi and
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternities, which he advised from 1955 to 1956 and 1958–1962, respectively. He also assisted in the establishment of the Alpha Phi Alpha Education Foundation, which offered a scholarship as early as 1965. His work with the Alphas won him the honor of being named Director of Educational Activities for Alpha Phi Alpha's national chapter, an appointment he held from 1966 until his death in 1967. ==Community involvement==