Dear Emeriti Colleagues,
Welcome to all you newly-retired faculty. We hope you enjoyed the celebration of your new status in June. The atmosphere that night reminded me of a commencement — a time where everyone is happy for the new lives that await them.
Now that you are retired, you, too, have the opportunity to reshape your life in many different ways. A sizeable number will continue doing more or less what you have been doing — continuing research, writing, teaching — and you will not be alone. A survey of all ten UC campuses resulted in a report titled A Virtual Eleventh Campus, written in 2016 by John Vohs, documents the fact that the collective output of scholarly work by UC emeriti is equivalent to UC having one additional campus.
Many others of you will take up an old interest that you had been putting off until you had time — painting, brushing up on your French or writing a history of your home town or family. Now you have time and still have the resources of the campus to help you. Others will travel, take care of grandchildren, see every Major League ballpark or finally take up golf. This is the time to do any or all of these things and likely more.
The role of the Emeriti Association, working with the Retiree Association and the Retiree Center, is to help all of you to make these years as valuable as possible. We provide a way to make the collective needs of emeriti heard at the campus and the statewide level. (Biggest example: With all the other associations, we took positions against the proposal to raise healthcare premiums.) We also provide a whole array of activities, from trips all around northern California, to retiree get-togethers, to monthly Brainfood talks on each second Thursday. To find out all we do, visit our website. Search “Emeriti Association UC Davis.”
In order to better serve the growing number of Med Center retirees, the Retiree Center has established a satellite center in Suite 2500 of Betty Irene Moore Hall. This comes just in time to help the School of Medicine celebrate its 50th anniversary. (I recall the founding of the school and was quite surprised to learn how fast 50 years had gone.)
We also try to keep you abreast of campus initiatives, so the joint Fall Emeriti/Retiree Associations meeting will feature Shaun Keister to talk about Chancellor May’s Big Ideas initiative and its implications for the future directions of the campus. He will be followed by our favorite annual speaker, campus Health Care Facilitator, Guerren Solbach, who will provide his usual very informative Open Enrollment and Health Benefits Update.
Should you have questions about navigating retirement, drop by the Retiree Center in the Buehler Alumni Center. In addition to retiree resources and information, the Retiree Center provides numerous social activities, such as day trips and campus tours. The Retiree Center is open daily. You can reach their offices by calling 530-752-5182.
Welcome to retirement. You are going to love it.
Tom Sallee