Dear Emeriti Colleagues,

We hope that summer has gotten off to a good start and that you are enjoying the season! If you are looking for book recommendations to round out your own summer reading lists, the University and the Seminary Co-op have a few suggestions. The UChicago News Office sought summer reading recommendations from the recent Quantrell and Graduate Teaching award winners. Past suggestions are also available on the news site, too. The Seminary Co-op also has put together a list of “Backlist Favorites and New Releases” that covers everything from cooking and gardening to history, literature, and “books about books.”

If you have your own book club, reading group, or other interest group, and are looking for a place to meet on campus, the emeriti lounge is available. We can provide the coffee and other refreshments! Contact us at emeritifaculty@uchicago.edu to find out more.  

As usual, additional details on events and activities during the summer months as well as more information from around campus can be found below.

The Emeriti Center and the Office of the Provost are pleased to announce the inaugural funding cycle of the Emeriti Grants for Academic Activities. The new grants are intended to support emeriti engaged in any academic activities and may be used to offset expenses including, but not limited to, attending professional conferences, field work, and other research.

Emeriti faculty interested in applying for the first round of funding should submit a 1-page proposal describing activities that would be supported and projected expenses to the Emeriti Center at emeritifaculty@uchicago.edu by July 31, 2022. Awards will typically be made for expenses up to $3000 and are expected to be used within 12 months of the award. Emeriti will be notified of decisions in August. A committee of emeriti and members of the Office of the Provost will review proposals and make recommendations for funding to the Provost or her delegates. The next call for proposals will be in the Winter of 2023.

Award recipients are expected to give a public lecture or presentation (in-person or virtual) as a part of Emeriti Center programming within 12 months of the award before being eligible to apply again.

Throughout the Summer the Lounge will remain open 9am-5pm for emeriti and their guests to use. Please also consider joining us for continued regular engagements with our campus partners at ITS and the Benefits Office and a new opportunity from Academic Technology Solutions (ATS). You can also join us remotely on zoom  (links provided below). 

• Academic Technology Solutions (ATS) Emeriti Tech Bar, Tuesday, July 26, 1:00-2:30pm and Tuesday, August 23, 1:00-2:30pm: During office hours, ATS staff will answer any questions you may have about the different technological tools you use in your pedagogy. They will offer hands-on support in setting up a Canvas site, recording and uploading video, creating Zoom meetings, and any other tasks that can arise in the course of day-to-day teaching. Join remotely on July 26 via Zoom and again on August 23.
• ITS Emeriti Tech Bar, Wednesday, August 3, 1:00-2:00pm: Desktop Support Specialist Gordon Dickson will be on hand in the lounge to answer questions and provide technology support via Zoom. 
• Benefits Office Meet and Greet, Wednesday, August 31, 11a.m. - 12 p.m.: UChicago’s Retiree Benefits Specialists Xaviera Espinoza and Estephany Arroyo return to the Lounge again this month and look forward to meeting emeriti and to answering your questions via Zoom. 

You will need a UChicago ID card to access the building and the lounge, which is located in the Klowden Family Library (Room 106), to your left as you enter. For more information about the Emeriti Lounge, please visit the emeriti faculty website.

As a result of the recent Retiree Survey, the Benefits Office would like to highlight several features of the Retiree Medical Coverage to make sure retirees are aware of the full breadth of coverage options.

• Hearing aids are covered on the Medicare Advantage Plan. There is a $500 reimbursement every 12 months for hearing aids. Under the Medicare Advantage plan, Aetna has three preferred vendors from which members can receive a discounted price on their hearing aids. These vendors may subtract the member’s hearing aid reimbursement amount directly at the point of sale, after they have applied any discounts. The vendors are:
  • Nations Hearing (1-877-478-2889)
  • Hearing Care Solutions (1-877-225-0137)
  • Amplifon Hearing Health Care (1-888-784-6050)

• Hearing aids are discounted under the Medicare Supplemental Plan. The Medicare Supplemental Plan membership has access to hearing aid discounts as well from the following vendors:
  • Hearing Care Solutions (1-877-225-0137)
  • Amplifon Hearing Health Care (1-888-784-6050)

• Routine vision exams are covered on the Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement Plans. Routine eye exams (one every 12 months) are covered with a $0 copay.

More coverage information and details are available on the University’s Retiree Medical Plan site. If you have any questions or concerns, you can always reach out directly to the Benefits Office at retiree@uchicago.edu.

Nine open-access, Library-funded agreements with publishers allow UChicago faculty, including emeriti faculty, as well as students and staff, to publish their research as open access without needing to pay article processing charges (APCs). Agreements to date are with ACS (American Chemical Society), Cambridge University Press, Microbiology Society, Public Library of Science (PLOS), Royal Society, Wiley, and, as of June, Brill, De Gruyter, and SPIE. Follow the links for more details.

The Library also recently announced an agreement to provide funding for new institutional access to Zotero’s cloud storage for users of the citation management software. Now anyone with a UChicago email address connected to their Zotero account can enjoy unlimited storage to sync their information and notes across devices. More information on institutional access and additional benefits that come with it, as well as instructions to set up an account or link an old account with your UChicago email address, are available on the Library’s website.

Stefano Guandalini, MD, AGAF, Professor Emeritus, Section of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, and Founder and Director Emeritus of the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, has co-edited a textbook with Anil Dhawan, MD (King’s College Hospital, London), Textbook of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. A Comprehensive Guide to Practice. Second Edition (Springer, 2022). In addition to editing the volume, Guandalini also co-authored two of the book’s chapters: “Celiac Disease” and “Microvillus Inclusion Disease and Tufting Enteropathy.”

David Orlinsky, Professor Emeritus, Social Sciences Collegiate Division, has authored How Psychotherapists Live: The Personal Self & Private Life of Professional Healers (Routledge, 2022). He added that the book is “Based on a 30-year empirical study of thousands of mental health practitioners worldwide, the book advances our understanding of psychotherapists and counselors by revealing the many ways they differ as persons, and how these differences shape their experiences of therapeutic work.”

In May, the American Astronomical Society announced that Don York, Horace B. Horton Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Enrico Fermi Institute, would be the recipient of the 2022 George Van Biesbroeck Prize, recognizing his work as the founding director of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The Van Biesbroeck Prize is awarded annually to an individual for “long-term extraordinary or unselfish service to astronomy.” For more information about the field-changing impact of York’s work on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, see the story from the Physical Sciences Division.

New UChicago Podcasts

Two new podcasts have joined the UChicago Podcast Network this summer: “9 Questions” with host Eric Oliver, Professor of Political Science, and “Carry the Two,” produced by the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI). Co-hosted by Sadie Witkowski, Director of Communications and Engagement at IMSI, and Ian Martin, “Carry the Two” intends to be “The show that pulls back the curtain to reveal the mathematical and statistical gears that turn the world” and focus on the mathematical and statistical insights that can help understand the world around us.” “9 Questions” owes its origin to a course Oliver started teaching two decades ago, “The Intelligible Self,” and has featured conversations with award winning violinists, filmmakers, political activists, poets, and Buddhist monks. You can learn more about these podcasts and listen in on others by visiting the UChicago Podcast Network page.

Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice Podcast

The Crown Family School Podcast features a faculty member in conversation with a colleague on an array of topics in the fields of social work, policy, and practice. In the most recent episode, “How Can School Governance Be a Model for Democracy?," Crown School Assistant Professor Eve Ewing speaks with Jonathan Collins, Assistant Professor of Education and International and Public Affairs at Brown University, about school boards and participating in democratic processes. Previous episodes feature conversations between Harold Pollack, Helen Ross Professor at the Crown Family School, and Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart (“Using a Social Work Approach in Community Policing”) and Gina Samuels, Associate Professor at the Crown Family School, and Kelly Faye Jackson, Associate Professor at Arizona State University (“Challenging racism in social work through Multiracial Attunement”).

Mini lectures at the Smart Museum

The Smart Museum may be closed for renovations this summer, but you can still re-visit their most recent exhibition, Bob Thompson: This House is Mine, through a series of short video “Object Chats.” Twelve in total, each chat is led by museum educators and interns from the Smart’s Public Practice department and focuses on a single piece in the exhibition.

If you have news or information about publications, accolades, or upcoming lectures and events, we would love to hear about them. Please contact us at emeritifaculty@uchicago.edu.