Faculty & Staff
Emeriti & Retirees Association
Emeritus status is an individual honor a department confers; the Emeriti & Retirees Association is the organized community that comes after it.
How this differs from emeritus status
See faculty emeritus status for how an individual retiring faculty member is nominated for the honorific title. The Emeriti & Retirees Association is a separate, opt-in organization open to any retired faculty or staff member, emeritus title or not — a retired administrative assistant of thirty years is just as welcome as a retired dean.
What the association does
It runs a monthly speaker lunch (often a current faculty member presenting recent research to a genuinely engaged audience), maintains library and building access for members, and serves as an organized voice for retiree health-benefit and pension questions when the state changes retirement-system rules.
Continued campus privileges
Association members keep library borrowing privileges, a discounted parking permit, access to the recreation center, and an official university email forwarding address — small things individually, but the kind of continuity that keeps a thirty-year career from ending at a single retirement party.
Mentoring current faculty and staff
The association coordinates an informal mentoring pool that new department chairs and first-year faculty can draw on — someone who chaired the same department fifteen years ago has usually already solved the budget-cycle problem a new chair is currently stuck on.