UMRA’s Journal of Opinions, Ideas & Essays, newly relaunched, has published four articles so far in 2021. The most recent, “Impact of UMRA’s Professional Development Grants for Retirees Program” by Will Craig, is a more detailed version of an article featured in the August 2020 UMRA News. 

The abstract says in part: This article is based on surveys of 38 individuals who received grants from 2014–20. It documents the wide range of projects they undertook and the impact those projects had on those individuals and society. Results have improved individual lives, societal understanding, environmental quality, the reputation of the University of Minnesota, and the personal satisfaction of the retired grantee.

Another article, “Poems and Photographs: Midwestern Hobbies Align,” is about the poems of my Great Aunt Mary Anderson. The abstract explains: An avid reader, I have found solace in Mary’s gentle, insightful, and soothing poems. Mary wrote these poems during the 1920s and 1930s, when the world was facing overwhelming problems, as we are today. Barely aware of her existence, I was delighted to recently find that my great-aunt had composed nearly 60 poems and I began transcribing them into a collection to be shared with my cousins. I added some of my own nature photographs, hoping an even wider audience might enjoy the piece. 

Please contact Kris Bettin at [email protected] if you have an article you would like to submit for publication.

—Kristine M. Bettin, JOIE editor-in-chief