From the President Archives
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We are pleased with the outcome of the University’s presidential search process and look forward to welcoming President-elect Joan Gabel to campus in the new year. Representing the UMRA Board, Frank Cerra and Chip Peterson participated in Gabel’s Twin Cities Campus forum in December and were favorably impressed by her background, responses to questions, and communication style. They provided a summary of their positive views on the candidate and the search process to Board of Regents Chair David MacMillan and Presidential Search Advisory Committee Chair Abdul Omari.
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By the time you read this column, we will have met with Regent Abdul Omari, chair of the U’s Presidential Search Committee. (A summary of the October 30 session will be posted on UMRA’s website.) This meeting is a direct outcome of our planning retreat last August in which a group, led by Bill Donohue, focused on ways for enhancing UMRA’s presence in the broader University community.
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In September the UMRA Board reviewed the wide-ranging list of new initiatives generated at the August leadership retreat (see last month’s column). The discussion of prioritizing the proposals raised interesting questions about UMRA’s mission and surfaced inherent tensions between the desire to serve and influence the University with the need to care for the welfare of our retirees.
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As we start the new year for UMRA, I’m excited by the opportunities and challenges ahead.
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Election results
At UMRA’s annual meeting on May 22 the membership elected the slate of candidates presented by the Nominating Committee for UMRA’s 2018–19 Board, including Bill Donohue as our new president-elect and Lynn Anderson our new secretary. In keeping with UMRA tradition, Jerry Rinehart, who served as president-elect for the past year, will lead the Board as president. Frank Cerra and Kaimay Yuen Terry will join the board, and Claudia Parliament and Gloria Williams will continue with new terms.
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Highlights of the coming year
Planning for next year’s meetings continues to loom large in Board activities. We are hoping the experiment the Board and Campus Club have negotiated will prove a crucial first step toward resolving two major issues members have consistently raised about Campus Club Room ABC: inadequate room capacity, which results in reservation closure, and cramped spaces that inhibit circulating and socializing.
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Luncheon venue
As part of our quest for more adequate space, the UMRA Board of Directors and the Campus Club Executive Committee have approved a promising experiment for 2018–19. Key features of the agreement are as follows:
The Campus Club will allow us to use the West Wing for three “pilot program” luncheons in 2018–19, tentatively in November, January, and March. For these, UMRA will extend invitations to Campus Club members to fill in excess capacity (at least for the talk, and possibly to bring their trays to the luncheon as well).
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At its February meeting the Board focused on significant developments in three areas of work as follow-up to the October Town Hall luncheon meeting:
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Short-term priorities
At its January meeting, the Board continued sifting through the plethora of suggestions from the membership “town hall” in October. The Board proposes the following priorities for the rest of this academic year
Solve the problem of luncheon overcrowding. President-elect Jerry Rinehart’s task force is making good progress on this front.
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UMRA legal/financial status. UMRA is not part of the University, although the recently signed memorandum of agreement with the Provost’s Office does formally acknowledge what had hitherto been a more ad hoc relationship. At present we are an independently incorporated Minnesota nonprofit under a status that does not permit potential donors to make tax-deductible contributions. Drawing partly on a recent meeting of UMRA’s Council of Past Presidents, at its Oct. 24 meeting the board began a discussion of this arrangement versus potential alternatives.
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Welcome, UMRA members, to our 2017-2018 year! As I enter—with great anticipation, along with some trepidation—my year as president, I give thanks daily for the terrific team of officers, board members, representatives, liaisons, committee members, and others who make this organization run. UMRA is an all-volunteer enterprise. We have no office staff; it has been so ever since UMRA’s founding, and amazingly, it works.
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This month's President's message was written by Board member Jeanne Markell, who is the UMRA representative to the University of Minnesota Alumni Association. This is the first in a series of articles that we will bring to you about UMRA's effort to work cooperatively with UMAA.
--Donna Peterson
Retirees have a unique perspective on the consequences of diminished state investment in higher education, and our former employer needs our help!
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UMRA offers social time before luncheons
As those who have experienced it know, the UMRA lunches have become so popular, the luncheon room is filled to capacity with tables and people. That makes it difficult to move about the room before the lunch to find and make contact with friends.
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Volunteers energize our organization
As many of you know, our University of Minnesota Retirees Association is an organization that exists because of volunteers. Members volunteer many hours identifying and arranging for the speakers at our monthly luncheons, receiving reservations, preparing our name tags, and arranging for helpful workshops. In addition, a large committee reviews all the applications for the research grants; another, UMRA Cares, supports members experiencing loss or illness.
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Elections closer to home
Yes, I know, we are just finishing with what seems the longest election in history, and you thought we did not need to think about elections for another year or two. However there is an election early next year that is very important to the University of Minnesota. A joint convention of the 2017 Minnesota Legislature will be electing four members of the Board of Regents.
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