From the President
2026-09: UMRA is at an all-time high
As I begin my term as UMRA president, I am grateful to be taking office when UMRA is in a strong fiscal position, has a cadre of dedicated leaders, and is buoyed by the positive response to the successful Big Ten Retirees Association 2026 Conference we hosted in July. The three-day event was a reminder of UMRA’s strength as we exchanged program ideas and membership strategies with the 14 other university delegations attending and, with due modesty, showed off our neighborhood with campus tours, dinner at the Campus Club, and an evening cruise on the Mississippi River. (See “‘Minnesota Nice’ and so much more” by Susan and Patrick Shields.)
One of my assignments as the incoming president of UMRA is to update our “personnel roster”—an astonishing list of more than 60 members who directly contribute their time to UMRA as committee members, liaisons, representatives, coordinators of shared interest groups, communicators, hosts, and more. In addition, many of you do volunteer work, help casually at the events you attend, advocate for us, and actively engage new members to feel welcome. The result is that UMRA is, I believe, at an all-time high, with more than 900 members and growing.
However, I am also well aware that more can be done to engage new University retirees with outreach activities; to contact colleagues who, for reasons of proximity or health, are not able to attend in-person events; and to evaluate programs with an eye to replacing activities that no longer resonate with members, by offering fresh opportunities (to quote our mission statement) “to learn, serve, and connect.”
Evaluating our current activities and thinking creatively about the future is the focus of a leadership retreat planned for late August, UMRA’s first since pre-COVID. The focused conversation should help the UMRA Board—and indeed all of us, together—continue to make UMRA a leader among the Big Ten.
—Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, UMRA president 2026–27