Below is a list of speakers who addressed previous meetings of the Retiree Assembly, along with the topics they spoke about.
- David A. Robinson, Distinguished Professor and New Jersey State Climatologist, Department of Geography and NJ Agricultural Experiment Station, “New Jersey’s Changing Climate” (May 2024)
- Laura C. Schneider, Professor, Department of Geography, “Dynamics of Tropical Forest Regeneration from a Land Systems Science Perspective” (April 2024).
- Heather Fenyk, President of the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership (LRWP), “How Finding Lost Streams Can Help Us Adapt.” In keeping with the LRWP’s practice of community education in the interest of science, this talk, in Heather Fenyk’s words, examined “the changes made to our urban streams and hydrology over time: how to read a topographic map, how to identify watersheds, and how to #lookfortheriver—to empower community members to explore their own local landscapes” (March 2024)
- Discussion of our campaign to change the terms of retirees’ medical insurance to provide permanent coverage for spouses (February 2024).
- Michael J. Carr, Professor of Geography Emeritus, “Volcanoes Cause Mass Extinctions and Affect Climate, Weather, and History.” His talk was about a gigantic eruption 201 million years ago made the Watchung Mountains, caused a major extinction, and helped the Union Army win at Gettysburg (December 2023).
- Patrick Nowlan, Executive Director of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, on the new union contract, in particular its failure to include our proposal to extend health insurance for retirees to their surviving spouse, and what actions we might take to keep the topic alive (October 2023).
- Paul Hirschfield, Director of the Program in Criminal Justice and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers-New Brunswick, “Exceptionally Lethal: A Cross-National Analysis of Police Killings” (May 2023).
- Peter B. Golden, Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish, and Middle Eastern Studies, “The Construction of Ethnicity in Medieval Turkic Central Eurasia” (April 2023). Click here to read the article this presentation was based on.
- Nydia Flores-Ferrán, Professor Emeritus of Learning and Teaching, “Linguistic Mitigation and Intensification in English and Spanish Communication” (March 2023).
- Maxine Lurie, Professor of History Emerita, Seton Hall University, and Chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission, an agency within the Department of State, “What’s Up? Public History Planning for NJ250, Commemoration of the American Revolution” (February 2023).
- Martin Oppenheimer, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Rutgers-New Brunswick, “The Tragedy of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: How a Movement Lost Its Way” (January 2023). His talk added details to this timeline about the civil rights movement of our lifetimes, including the speaker’s personal experience with some of the events.
- Gerald M. Pomper, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Rutgers–New Brunswick, “First Thoughts on the Elections of 2022” (November 2022)
- Ron Becker, Retired as Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, “The Broad Seal War of 1838-1840“ (October 2022). He described how New Jersey’s contested Congressional election resulted in chaos at the Capitol, and how our botched election led to our State not being represented in Congress during an important period in history.
- Judith Weis, Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences, Rutgers-Newark, “New Jersey Tidal Marshes and Sea Level Rise.” This meeting was scheduled for September 2022, but the Zoom connection failed during the meeting. Members were later alerted by email to a link to a Zoom video that will be available for viewing or download.
- Michael Rockland, “Why I Write Two Books at the Same Time, Fiction and Nonfiction: No, I’m Not Crazy” (May 2022). Our retired colleague told us how co-authoring a book on the NJ Turnpike somehow liberated his imagination for the novel he was writing. So he followed this dual strategy twice again, both times with great success. “Eggs in multiple baskets” is how he says he does it.
- Neil Sacks and associates Edgar Lara and Jaime Young, “Your NJ Alternate Benefit Plan (ABP) Pension: Options and Strategies” (March 2022). A discussion (no sales pitches) of ways to maximize dollars and minimize risks. Also, at the March meeting, the Retiree Assembly of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, approved a resolution to endorse the “Statement against the Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” as drafted and adopted by the Executive Council of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, and informed the Executive Council of our action.
- Paul Tractenberg, “Justice Delayed and the Strange Case of Lakewood’s Public ‘School Students’: Is the State of New Jersey Trying to Back Away from the Constitutional Guarantee of a Thorough and Efficient Education for All Students?” (February 2022). Our retired colleague from Newark Law School discussed an important case that he and one of his former students are currently litigating before the New Jersey Appellate Division court. Following the meeting, he provided this copy of the decision by the Acting Commissioner described in his presentation.
- Rutgers Online History Association (ROHA), “Archiving Our Years at Rutgers” (January 2022). Director Shaun Illingworth and researchers Kathryn Rizzi and Donald Koger talked about ROHA’s work as it has evolved over the past 20 years to become a nationally recognized center for historical preservation and a central repository for recording the history of Rutgers University.