August 2009
Vol. 2009-2010 No. 1
Welcome! Or welcome back!
Welcome back to returning members of the IU Association of Retired Faculty and Staff. We hope your summer was glorious. As another academic year begins, we look forward to your “re-upping.”
And welcome to our prospective members. This issue of Newswatch is being mailed to newly retired faculty and staff. We cordially invite you to join us. Dues are modest ($10 for individuals, $15 for couples), and our meetings offer an opportunity to exchange ideas, information, and friendship.
The Retirees Association provides a voice for retirees in their continuing relationship with Indiana University. Please return the enclosed form, together with your membership contribution.
September to feature accordion
Have you ever heard a Bulgarian accordionist? That experience awaits you at the fall luncheon on Wed., Sept. 9. The doors downstairs will open at 11:30 at Terry’s Banquets & Catering, 3124 Canter-bury Drive. Lunch will be served at noon.
Svetla Vladeva majored in accordion and piano at the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. While a student, she taught herself to play the bayan, a chromatic button accordion played by only two other Bulgarians. Her repertoire includes classical and contemporary music, folk music from around the world, and popular tango, waltz, and – yes! – polka music. In addition to performing, Svetla teaches button and keyboard accordion, as well as piano and music theory. She has performed with IU’s Latin American and Silk Road ensembles and in the world premiere of the contemporary opera Unicamente la Verdad! (Only the Truth!) as part of the 2008 Summer Music Festival.
She received rave reviews when she performed at an Emeriti House function. Program chair Eileen Schellhammer predicts that Svetla will be a hit with this wider audience.
Diners can choose between teriyaki marinated chicken skewers served over a wild rice blend or a vegetarian option, with vegetable skewers over wild rice. Everyone will receive a green salad with dressing, green beans amandine, rolls with butter, coffee or iced tea, and a brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. The cost is $15 per meal; the deadline is Sept. 2. Please return the enclosed reservation form.
After two years under a different owner, Terry’s closed in January. It re-opened in June, returning to its longtime owners, Terry and Lillie Cockerham. A new chef, Claudio Armenti, is creating the kind of dishes that made Terry’s famous in days past.
Mark your calendar now
Save the dates for future meetings by putting them on your calendar now:
Oct. 7 – 2 p.m., Dick McKaig, recently retired after 38 years at IU, the last 18 of them as IU’s dean of students
Nov. 11 – 2 p.m., Fred Glass, IU athletics director, gives a tour of the North End Facility at Memorial Stadium
Dec. 9 – noon, luncheon at Terry’s, with entertainment by IU African American choral group
Jan. 13 – a speaker from UITS on being an 8-track veteran in an iPod world
Feb. 10 – 2 p.m., TBA
April 14 – 2 p.m., IU basketball coach Tom Crean
May 12 – 5:30 p.m., annual potluck dinner
With the exception of November, when we meet at Memorial Stadium, and the December luncheon, which will be again at Terry’s, we’ll meet at the Peterson Room, Showalter House, IU Foundation. We don’t meet in March because it’s spring break.
May offers dining, Cole Porter
More than 90 people attended the grand finale of the 2008-2009 academic year at the May 13 potluck dinner of the Association of Retired Faculty and Staff. After enjoying a feast of our members’ devising, retirees and their guests basked in the music of Cole Porter, as presented by IU graduates Bob and Pat Williams.
Program committee co-chair Nancy White introduced her professor, Bob Stoll, who introduced the Williamses. Pat Williams explained that Cole Porter was different from most composers of his era. Born in Indiana, he was a child of wealth and privilege, and his lyrics were more auto-biographical than those of other composers. He composed sad, haunting love songs, such as “Easy to Love,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “In the Still of the Night,” and “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”
Irving Berlin prompted Porter to go to Broadway, where he was trying perpetually to please. His rhyming techniques and sophisticated lyrics were unique, and he was the personification of suave sophistication and cynicism (“Brush Up Your Shakes-peare,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “Miss Otis Regrets”).
In 1937 a horse fell on him, and Porter endured 31 operations over 20 years before his right leg was amputated in 1958. Some of his best known lyrics – “Love for Sale,” “It’s All Right with Me” – were written when he was in great pain. His “Night and Day” was recently voted one of 35 most popular song favorites of all time.
Thanks to Pat’s informative narration and Bob’s mastery of the keyboard, retirees fulfilled the program’s title and got a kick out of Cole Porter.
Earlier in the evening, Joann and Bob Dodd, on behalf of the Retirees Association, presented outgoing president Bob Ensman with a wooden bowl that had been part of the Emeriti House art exhibit. Bob Dodd pointed out that Bob Ensman served two terms as association president. He spearheaded a revision of the articles of the association that changed the organization’s name, and he produced an operations manual that spells out policies, timetables, and the duties of officers and committees. Bob Ensman was unable to introduce the incoming president, Sandy Churchill, who couldn’t get across the two feet of water flowing down Kerr Creek Road.
United Way to strike up the band
On Sunday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m., an “Afternoon of Magical Music” will celebrate United Way and Big Band music. The Stardusters Jazz Orchestra, performing at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, will feature original arrangements by such celebrated musicians as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Glenn Miller, and Buddy Rich. The concert will feature vocalist Janiece Jaffe. Tickets are available at the Sunrise box office, the United Way office, and all Bloomingfoods locations. Each costs $20 in advance or $25 on the day of the show. All proceeds benefit United Way of Monroe County’s annual campaign.
The 2009-2010 United Way campaign will kick off the week of Sept. 7, when letters will be mailed to prospective donors. The goal for the IU Association of Retired Faculty and Staff is $70,000. When you make your pledge, be sure to note your affiliation with the Retirees Association.
Last year, in difficult economic times, retirees raised $68,150, with 39 Vanguard-level donors, those contributing $1,000 or more. The United Way campaign brought in nearly $1.4 million, 96.7 percent of its goal. The Retirees Association’s stalwart representatives for the campaign are Doris Burton, Wain Martin, and Harriet Pfister.
Emeriti Center site offers information
A wealth of information for retirees is available on the IU Emeriti Center’s Web site. Under the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) tab is information about how to get an ID card, a bus pass, an e-mail address, fee courtesy, or a parking permit. Although the answers are addressed primarily to emeriti faculty and librarians, most benefits apply to retired professional staff as well. (Restrictions apply, however, if you wish to purchase software under IU’s agreement with Microsoft.) An"“opportunities for involvement" page is under development.
University Human Resources also offers information about benefits for retirees Note that "fee courtesy" is now called "IU tuition benefit," although all plan components and provisions remain the same.
Strengthening connections: Burton, Churchill represent IU at Big Ten
Representing IU at the 18th annual Big Ten Retirees Association conference were Retirees Association President Sandra Churchill and Treasurer Doris Burton. This year’s conference, held at the University of Iowa from Aug. 14-16, had as its theme"“The Big Ten and Its Academic Counterpart, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)" Speakers included CIC Executive Director Barbara Allen and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany.
Next year Indiana University will host the conference. Doris chairs the steering committee, along with Sandy and past president Bob Ensman.
In memoriam
The April issue of Newswatch included obituaries for five members of the IU Association of Retired Faculty and Staff who died during the past academic year: Alice Deppe, Frank Edmondson, Tom Hennessy, Bruce McQuigg, and Virginia Savage. Two members were inadvertently omitted, and three have died since that issue. Deceased members are memorialized twice a year, in the April and August issues. Listings are limited to people who belonged to the association at the time of their death. Please inform the editor (jschroed@indiana.edu, 812-332-5057) of any omissions.
Edward J. Bair died in Bloomington on Nov. 10, 2008. He was 86. Ed joined the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in time to help set up facilities that purified 235U for the first atomic bomb. After earning his doctorate in physical chemistry at Brown, he joined the IU chemistry faculty, retiring in 1989. He served for 15 years as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Photochemistry. Ed developed the chemistry department’s mechanical instrument service, which is now named in his honor. In retirement his research interests, particularly in space solar power, resulted in a book, Connecting the Dots to Future Electric Power (2007).
Dean F. Berkley died in Bloomington on May 17, 2009. He was 83. After an early career as a high school teacher, coach, and administrator, Dean joined the Indiana University School of Education faculty in 1957, where he was at various times director of college and university placement, director of field services, and director of the division of administration and administrative studies. He retired in 1990. Much sought after as a public speaker, he addressed audiences in 49 of the 50 states as well as several foreign countries. He was president of the Monroe County Community School Holding Corp. and active in Boy Scouts.
Dorothy Faulkner Heath died July 12, 2009, in Bloomington. She was 81. She was a native of Berkeley, Calif., where she met her husband, Gordon. The Heaths came to IU in 1955. Gordon became director of the division of optometry in 1970, becoming dean when the division became the School of Optometry in 1975. The mother of five children, Dorothy also mothered many optometry students, making it a point to invite international students to the Heath home. A member of Psi Iota Xi, she was president of the IU Women’s Club and a docent at the IU Art Museum.
John A. Moldstad died Dec. 15, 2008, in Bloomington. He was 85. A professor in Instructional Systems Technology (formerly audio-visual) in the School of Education for 37 years, he retired in 1989. At the IU Audio-Visual Center Training Program in media, he directed the Agency for International Development for foreign students from 15 developing countries. He helped formulate the curriculum for the newly emerging area of educational technology, taught 10 different graduate instructional systems technology courses, and gave keynote addresses at three
international conferences. He was vice president of the Annuitants Association, the forerunner of the Retirees Association, in 1999-2000 and president in 2000-2001.
Elizabeth Jennings Evans Perry died June 8, 2009, in Brown County. She was 92. An English major at Cornell, she was left a widow at an early age. She married Bernard Perry in 1947. After Herman B Wells offered Bernard a job as founder and director of Indiana University Press, the family, with three children, moved to Bloomington in 1950. Betty was a founding member of Bloomington’s Unitarian Universalist Church and active on the boards of Planned Parenthood and the League of Women Voters. She was president of the board of Girl Scouts when the Bloomington chapter expanded into the regional Tulip Trace Council.
