Living Well Workshop

Making choices to be active, healthy, and well

Our Living Well Workshop for January, the month when people traditionally head back to the gym, will focus on building physical fitness and activity into our lives, an especially challenging task in a pandemic winter. 

UMRA health plan options for open enrollment

Medica Chief Medical Officer John Mach, MD, will be among the presenters for UMRA's October workshop focused on U of M retiree health plan options for 2021. Open enrollment begins November 1. 

Time for a radical re-thinking of age

With people living longer than ever before, the post-retirement stage of life can be almost as long as the working years. In this workshop, Lucy Rose Fischer, author of I’m New at Being Old, and her husband, Mark Fischer, will show how these years can be the best time of our lives.

Protecting your online presence

Are you concerned about the safety of your digital data? If not, you should be. This one-hour presentation by U of M Security Analyst Jenny Blaine will provide an overview of cyber threats and best practices for protecting ourselves from them. 

Monthly workshops will return in September

UMRA’s monthly Living Well workshops will continue in September with a presentation on internet security previously scheduled for March 11. 

Resilient coping: Facing life course realities plus a pandemic and community upheaval

Maintaining resiliency and hope for self and others while growing older can be challenging, even in the best of times. But it is especially challenging now that we are dealing simultaneously with a pandemic, economic recession, and community upheaval.

Making lemonade

By Ron Matross, chair, UMRA Cares Committee
Our April Living Well Workshop has been canceled. In place of the article that would normally appear in this space, I thought it would be fun to find out how people are “making lemonade” to cope with the coronavirus situation.

March workshop: Protecting your online presence

CANCELED.
In light of the University’s cancelation on March 11 of in-person class meetings, and concerns about transmission of the coronavirus, UMRA has canceled the meeting and workshop that were scheduled for March 24. We believe this is the only prudent course of action to avoid risk to our members.

We will take appropriate actions to reimburse those individuals who have already paid for the luncheon. Thanks for your understanding and concern in this difficult time. If you have questions, please email me.

—Bill Donohue, president 

February workshop: Senior housing and long-term care

Tetyana Shippee, PhD, (pictured above) a social gerontologist at the U of M School of Public Health, will be joined by Cheryl Hennen, state ombudsman for long-term care at the Minnesota Board on Aging, and Susan Farr, a vice president at Ebenezer, Minnesota’s largest senior-living operator, for a panel discussion moderated by UMRA’s Ron Anderson.

Meet Regent Janie S. Mayeron

Regent Janie S. Mayeron will be our special guest on Monday, December 9, at an informal meeting to be held in the University of Minnesota Foundation large conference room on the fifth floor of the McNamara Alumni Center from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. 

UMRA has arranged this meeting (the second of four) for our members to get acquainted with the four individuals elected to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents in May.

January 2020 workshop: Understanding hearing loss

Peggy Nelson, PhD, (pictured) and Liz Anderson, PhD, from the U’s Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science, will present a one-hour workshop on the latest findings regarding aging and hearing loss and what we should all know.

November workshop: How to keep our brains healthy

Joseph E. Gaugler, PhD, director of the Center on Aging in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, will talk about aging-related brain changes and brain health at UMRA’s Living Well Workshop in November.

October workshop will feature OHR's annual benefits update

Our October Living Well Workshop will be the annual overview of retiree health benefits by the Office of Human Resources, plus an update on changes in the retirement investment system to be implemented next spring.

The workshop will be held in the West Wing Dining Room to accommodate the large attendance we anticipate.

Back to school: opportunities for retirees at the U of M

Our September workshop will showcase opportunities for UMRA members to continue their education at the University, with representatives from LearningLife, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and the Senior Citizen Education Program.

Senior housing information session

The UMRA board has invited representatives of two senior living facilities with University connections to provide information about their facilities and the services they provide.