Retirees: Emeritus Center -- Retirees find warm welcome at SUNY Buffalo

“Every campus should have the Emeritus Center we have at SUNY Buffalo. … The center is great.”

That’s what one SUNY Buffalo retiree wrote on UUP’s “Survey of Campus Privi-leges,” which was sent to retirees last year through The Active Retiree, the union’s official retiree publication. And, judging from the 575 members the Emeritus Center now has, many others agree with her.

Founded in 1977, the SUNY Buffalo Emeritus Center provides retired faculty, professionals, staff members and their spouses with a home away from home. Retirees can meet friends there; play cards, billiards or table tennis; watch TV; and attend free monthly meetings.

In the last year, retirees at meetings have heard from a linguistics faculty member, a physical rehabilitation specialist and a theater producer from the community, among others.

Members enjoy field trips

Many members also enjoy the occasional field trips, which have included an overnight excursion to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater country house, and theater performances, lunches and dinners in Toronto and at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The center is housed on the ground floor of the university’s Goodyear Hall, a 10-story dormitory building on the South Campus. There’s a meeting room, kitchen space, small library (run on the honor system), office space for the volunteer coordinator and room for a pool table, piano (donated by the wife of a former campus president) and other equipment. The space was converted from its former use as a residential hall to accommodate the retirees.

Funded through SUNY Buffalo

Because the center is funded through the campus President’s Office, and the space and its furnishings are made available by the university, membership costs a mere $3 per year. The university provides telephone and computer services. It also pays to print and mail a monthly newsletter for retirees. The membership dues pay for meeting refreshments, minor furniture repairs and the like.

A nine-member advisory board guides the center’s activities, along with several committee chairs. Retiree Betty Stone is board president this year.

Volunteer opportunities

Emeritus Center members can also take advantage of the Retired Employee Volunteers-University Program (REV-UP), which offers retirees a way to remain “connected” to the university while helping active faculty and staff.

Lee Baker, whose office is in the Emeritus Center, has managed REV-UP since 1990. As the wife of faculty retiree and UUPer Jack Baker, she’s also a member of the center.

Since 1990, volunteers have given more than 33,000 hours of service to the Buffalo campuses in a variety of capacities, according to Baker. Currently, about 80 to 85 retirees volunteer on a regular basis. Baker considers herself “a broker” between the Emeritus Center retirees and the university’s departments.

Retiree volunteers, according to Baker, do everything from office work — such as mailing and copying — to serving as ticket-takers and ushers at football games, concerts at Slee Hall and other major university events. Retiree volunteers also assist the Red Cross at campus blood drives.

According to Baker, volunteers serve in various places, including the medical school, the medical education department, the dental alumni association, the dental school, student affairs department and other areas. Some volunteers work on pledge drives at the university’s public radio station, WBFO-FM, answering the phones when contributors call in.

Baker commented: “This is truly a wonderful program, but it is the wonderful, giving university volunteers who make it happen. … I feel honored to be a part of it with them.”

UUP member Michael Metzger, a professor emeritus of German who retired in 1999, is vice president of the center’s advisory board and will serve as its president next year.

Summing up his feelings about the center, Metzger said: “The Emeritus Center is a real asset to the university community, and every campus should have one.”

— Claire Meirowitz

(UUP member Claire Meirowitz was director of community relations and publications at SUNY Old Westbury before retirement. She is a past editor of The Active Retiree, the union’s newsletter for retired members, where this article first appeared.)