Former mayor Richard M. Daley announced Tuesday that he will reenter the workforce, just two weeks after retiring from office on May 16.

Daley will join the University of Chicago faculty as a senior distinguished fellow in the Harris School of Public Policy Studies. The position will be part-time for five years and starts July 1.

He will organize 10 annual guest lectures that will consist of different perspectives and approaches examining the major issues facing cities in the 21st century. Although Daley won’t be teaching a class or grading papers, he will have an office at the school, according to the university’s website.

The lecture series begins with the 2011-12 academic year and will bring policymakers from around the world to debate urban policy challenges, and train future policy leaders. The university believes Daley will add important voice to the ongoing conversations about the future of cities.

“The students and faculty at the University of Chicago benefit from a culture of open debate, in which a diverse range of scholarship and practical experiences comes together in the search for knowledge and solutions,” University President Robert J. Zimmer said. “By bringing in urban policy leaders of many perspectives, Mayor Daley will help foster illuminating discussions about how our cities can flourish, and will provide University of Chicago students with valuable educational experience.”

“Mayor Daley has probably more strategic vision of what the future of cities will be like than anybody else certainly that I have come across,” Harris School Dean Colm O’Muircheartaigh said, “and we need this framing in order to focus the kind of work that we do and our understanding of the work that we do within the academy.”

“This is a great honor for me to be named distinguished senior fellow at the university of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies,” Daley said. “I look forward to lending my voice and experience as urban leader to the important work of this great university. I can think of no better way to feed the passion I have always had for Chicago and its changing face.”

Daley will reunite with several of his former aides who’ve landed jobs at the university or its hospitals.

Daley’s successor, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also made headlines Tuesday after he reassigned 500 Chicago police officers to higher-crime areas, released a statement following Daley’s announcement, which appeared on the university’s website.

“On behalf of the entire city of Chicago, I congratulate Mayor Daley on his appointment at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies,” Emanuel said.

“I am confident that Mayor Daley will bring to his new role the wisdom, insight and experience of his more than two decades in office. I am thankful that he will be participating in the ongoing dialogue as we all work to make Chicago a safer, stronger city. “