UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
RETIRED FACULTY ASSOCIATION
MINUTES OF APRIL 24, 2002
MEETING
The
Annual Spring Meeting of the Retired Faculty Association was held on Wednesday,
April 24, 2002 in the University Memorial Center at UCB.
President
Mary Bonneville called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. and welcomed all
members and guests.
The
minutes of the Annual Fall meeting of the RFA on October 17, 2001 were approved
as presented. (Thanks were expressed to
Katherine Harris for the taking and preparation of these minutes.)
Mary
Bonneville read the names of faculty members and administrators and spouses who
had died since the October 17, 2001 meeting.
Those memorialized were listed in the packet previously mailed to
members. (President Bonneville expressed
embarrassment at the error but announced the good news that Oscar J. Miller,
Law School, UCB had not died.) A moment
of silence was observed in honor of these deceased persons.
RFA
President Mary Bonneville reported as follows:
(1) A number of items concerning RFA activities and plans are mentioned in the Spring, 2002
Newsletter. Lots of changes have
occurred, as in our venue and program for the present meeting, (2) The Open House in January at the new RFA
office in the Garden Level of the University President's Office Building was
very successful. (3) About sixty people
attended Bob Fink's ``Tea-time'' talk on April 3 at the Academy. Thanks to Bob and Chuck Howe for starting
this program. This is an effort to draw
retired faculty from the four campuses together. Donna Bogard is organizing a Denver Campus
pre-holiday event on Friday, November 8,
(4) As previously announced, Bill Tetlow is the new webmaster for the
RFA website and will be working through Don Diebert to get current information
about retiring faculty as well as accurate information on deaths of retired
faculty or their spouses, (5) Thanks were expressed to (a) Joan McConkey,
retiring as RFA representative to the Faculty Council Personnel Committee, (b)
Rita Weiss, retiring as a RFA representative to the BFA and who has agreed to
serve as the RFA necrologist, and (c) Rebekka Struik who agreed to serve as an
Alternate RFA representative to the Faculty Council Personnel Committee during
the past two years.
RFA
Vice-President Carl Kisslinger presented an informative report on the present
status of the RFA Graduate Student Award Program and possible future plans for
funding the program as well as a time schedule for deciding on such plans. His report also solicited names of potential
nominees for the offices of Vice-President/President Elect and Secretary of the
RFA to be filled by election in October, 2002.
The
report by Treasurer Pat Magette, as contained on page 8 of the packet for this
meeting, was accepted as presented.
Stewart
Strickler, Assistant Secretary for Membership, reported that the RFA at present
has about 350 dues paying members and spouses, 50 surviving spousal members,
and 100 complimentary members. About 100
previous members have not paid current dues.
President
Bonneville referred members to the written reports, contained in the packet for
this meeting, by Larry Morse for the Faculty Council on pages 8 and 9, by Joan
McConkey for the Faculty Council Personnel Committee on pages 9 and 10, and by
Rita Weiss for the Boulder Faculty Assembly on page 10.
(1) Ombudsperson.. Bob Fink reported that he'd had 39 contact
since the last RFA meeting in October, 2001.
About three quarters concerned benefits issues, so many were referred to
Robbie Martinez in the Benefits Office.
A letter is being sent to all Medicare supplement enrollees from Great
West with correct information concerning coverage and prescription drug
programs. The BFA and Faculty Council
Committees on Women are working on the issue of catch-up in benefits for
retired faculty women. He has received
requests from surviving spouses for free CU internet access (Retired faculty
and staff members are already eligible.)
(2) UBAB. RFA member Stuart Schneck, a member of UBAB,
briefly reported on its history of and present composition. There is now a permanent position for an RFA
representative. It is now possible to
arrange for automatic fund transfer to pay Medicare Supplement premiums. There are now two 90-day Atrium prescription
drug plans. Although medical costs in
Boulder and Colorado Springs areabout 20\% higher than in Denver, active
faculty pay the same premiums in all three locations. (Medicare pays different rates for the same
service in different areas.) UBAB
discussed the rate issue and its last decision was to keep uniform rates for
all three areas. A continuing and
perplexing question is how to head-off rapid increases in premiums. Court Peterson asked the related question,
"Now that Kaiser is charging monthly premiums ($22.75) to its Senior
Advantage Members who are CU retirees, has UBAB considered recommending raising
the University contributions to AMP members to keep pace with increased
subsidies of the University Medicare Supplement premiums?” Schneck said he would raise this issue in
upcoming UBAB meetings.
Vice
President Carl Kisslinger presented the following nominations for RFA
representatives to
Faculty Council Personnel Committee: Franz Roehmann (Music, UCD)
Boulder Faculty Assembly: Robert Flexer (Education, UCB)
There
were no further nominations from the floor and these persons were elected by acclamation.
President
Bonneville referred the RFA members to the list of appointments and volunteers
given on page 3 of the packet distributed for this meeting.
President
Bonneville referred the RFA members to the Notice of Motion, contained on page
10 of the packet for this meeting, from the RFA Executive Committee, to allow
the 2003 edition of the Association's Directory to be published on the RFA
Website with appropriate restriction on access, an “opt out'' provision, and
provision for members who wish to receive a ``hard copy'' of the
Directory. After a brief discussion, the
motion passed on a voice vote.
The
next meeting of the RFA is tentatively scheduled for October 16, 2002.
This
business meeting was adjourned at approximately 11:00 a.m.
After
a brief break, RFA members were treated to short reports on the research by two
of the three awardees for 2000:
Jennifer Gillette, Developmental Biology Program,
UCHSC, Dr. Sheila Preiss, Mentor.
David Grosshans, School of Pharmacology, UCHSC, Dr.
Michael Browning, Mentor.
Following
these presentations there was a short
“Social Hour'' preceding the buffet luncheon served in the UMC, Room
235. At the luncheon, RFA members and
guests were treated to a fascinating talk by Dr. Jonathan Van Blerkom, Adjunct
Professor, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology,
UCB. His talk was entitled: "The Development and Current Application
of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in
the Treatment of Human Infertility: Problems and Perspectives Arising from IVF
and its Derivatives, Oocyte Cryopreservation, Germ line Modification, Cloning
and Stem Cells.”
Respectfully
submitted, John H. (Jack) Hodges, Secretary
This
report is devoted to the status of the RFA Graduate Student Award Fund. As has been reported previously, the
Association entered into a Gift Agreement with the CU Foundation, by which the
Fund was created. We transferred \$1600
to the Foundation to fund the first awards, for the current year, and pledged a
like amount for 2003, to be transferred this July. We indicated the intention approved by the
members to fund the award for a second cycle, 2004 and 2005, but only after we
had an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the program based on the
experience of the first two years, and subject to the continued availability of
funds. We also included the intent that
RFA members would be encouraged to make free-will contributions for support of
this fund.
As
of now, a total of \$1,953 has been contributed by 15 generous members, an
average of \$130 each. This amount
itself is adequate to provide for a third year of support without committing
further treasury funds, if we choose to go that way. The advantage to the contributing members of
giving through the Foundation is that they can claim the amount as a charitable
contribution when they prepare their income tax returns. This could not be done easily if the money
were sent to the RFA treasury for payment to the Foundation.
Your
Executive Committee has been exploring ways by which we might insure that this
award could be continued in perpetuity.
One way would be to anticipate that adequate annual free-well
contributions will continue or, we hope, increase. At the present rate of our support, this
would call for an average of about $4.00 from each member each year.
An
alternative that has been suggested to us by the Foundation officers
responsible for Graduate School support is that we collect enough money to fund
an endowment to support the Awards. The
minimum amount for an endowment is $25,000.
For 400 contributing members, this would be a one-time gift, perhaps
spread over a few years, of about $65.00 each, just one-half of the average so
far.
Realistically,
we cannot expect all members to contribute, but we can expect some to do
more. It is not necessary that we
collect this money in one year. One
approach, then, is for the Association to continue to support the fund from its
own resources for a second cycle, assuming the treasury can carry the
commitment, and bank all member contributions during the next three years for
application to an endowment.
The
Executive Committee is far from a consensus on the approach we should take, but
we do agree that the success so far, as we can judge shortly when we hear from
two of the current awardees, merits an effort to keep this going. In addition, we know that by this modest gift
we have enhanced the good will toward our organization on the part of the
University administration. We are not
here today to sell any approach or reach a decision, but only to inform you of
our thinking. The schedule for reaching
a decision is as follows. During the
summer the Executive Committee will continue to explore and
discuss
these issues. At our October meeting,
Mr. Lee Quinby of the Foundation, whose responsibilities include the promotion
of Graduate School fellowships, will joint us to provide authoritative information and answers to your
questions. At our meeting in the spring,
2003, we must, to complete our previous action, vote on whether to continue a
second cycle of support. By that time,
we should have enough information and had enough time for careful consideration
to also decide a course of action for future support.
One
last comment on a different subject. One
of my jobs as vice-president is to head the Committee on Nominations. In October we shall elect a
Vice-President/President-elect and a Secretary, two major officers. If you have either the urge to run for one of
these posts or wish to suggest potential nominees, please let this be known to
me or to any member of the Executive Committee.
Their names, phone numbers, and email addresses are in the Membership
Directory.
Respectfully
submitted, Carl Kisslinger, Vice-President