AROHE (Association of Retiree Organization in Higher Education)
Association of Retiree Organization in Higher Education
LUCRA has enjoyed a relationship with Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education AROHE since 2014 when two of our Steering Committee Members (Marilyn Sussman and Nick Patricca) were charged with searching the www for information about retirement organizations. The University financially supported our participation in the organization as an institutional ember. In August 2016, Ida Androwich and Mary Ann McDermott were sent as representatives of LUCRA to the 8th AROHE biennial Conference held at the University of Washington in Seattle. Excellent keynote presentations by national speakers on Aging and Retirement tailored to Academics as well as small groups discussions and social events were held. The willingness to share both positive and negative learnings among the participants was remarkable. Relationships were explored with other representatives, both regionally (other Chicagoland) and nationally (other Jesuit Schools). A wealth of ideas of how our group could grow and improve were shared upon their return with the Steering Committee. As a result, one of the major changes we made was to include staff and administrators in our organization and to recruit several staff members to join our Steering Committee.
Two members of the Steering Committee (Erwin Epstein and a staff member) attended the 9th Biennial Meeting in Atlanta in 2018 at Emory University. As an outcome, Dr. Epstein continued to expand on the Jesuit Institution relationship and ACJU Retirement Organization was birthed. Given the circumstances of the Pandemic no Conference was held in 2020; however, a virtual 3 day Zoom Conference was held w in October of 2021. Nick Patricca and the representative from Santa Clara were selected to present a session on their work forming the ACJU Retiree Network. Several Steering Committee members were able to participate in a number of the sessions and resulted in further interest by Erwin Epstein to explore a travel program option for our retirees.
There are many wonderful resources for you to explore via the AROHE website https://www.arohe.org/ that include an Idea Exchange, a newsletter, and Zoom Conferences. LUCRA looks forward to many more opportunities in the future to both learn from and contribute to AROHE.
Submitted by Mary Ann Mcdermott
July 2023
