I hope you all had a relaxing enjoyable holiday season but now it is time to get back to the business of being retired. This is a lengthy E-News with the following four items:

1. A few comments from the January ASURA Board meeting
2. Interesting links
3. A United Way volunteer opportunity
4. Employee hearing screenings

January ASURA Board Meeting

A few comments from the committee reports

• The Pre-retirement Seminar – Trudy Perez and Liz Badalamenti Co-chairs
  
  The Pre-retirement seminars have really taken off. The goal is to provide information to those about to retire about retirement issues that are not addressed by the HR retirement sessions. The seminars have increased in number from one or two a year to monthly. They are given in the Computing Commons and are available via Zoom across all the campuses. Links to the last three presentations can be found in the next section.
• Government Liaison Committee – Jeri Meeks
  
  Jeri reported on her first review of the bills coming out of the legislature. At the moment there did not appear to be anything to be concerned with. Tara Roesler also mentioned that there are some bills to allow ASRS the possibility of becoming self-insured

Interesting Links

Following are various pages in the ASURA / ASU websites that you might have overlooked and would find interesting. Once you’ve looked at the page maybe you can poke around and find something even more interesting.

• Governor’s Council on Aging – The November meeting addressed efforts at capping drug costs.
• Video History Project – The interview with Gus Edwards, playwright and ASU professor is now available from the ASU Digital Repository.
• Past Event – A write-up and a few pictures from the Luncheon and Special Project's ASU Women’s Basketball event.
• Pre-retirement – Videos of the latest three pre-retirement seminar presentations

A United Way Volunteer Opportunity – The Vello Program

Helping a Child Learn to Read.......and Other Volunteer Opportunities You Might Find Interesting in the New Year

By John Millikin, PhD

When I retired from teaching in 2012 one of the things I noticed was that retirees were no longer part of the United Way campaigns as we were no longer on payroll. Working with the Valley of the Sun United Way (VSUW) we created Retire United as a focal point for continued involvement in the community. [Editors Note:  ASURA members do receive annual letters asking for donations to the United Way through ASU] We now have several hundred retirees in Retire United including ASU participants. We have found that many of us who participated as donors over the years now have more time to volunteer.

There are a number of different VSUW programs that benefited from Retiree United volunteers. These include:

• working with area school districts to provide backpacks with school supplies and reading materials to disadvantaged students.
• Project Connect to help get homeless and other poor people connected to right social services, and
• more recently the Vello program which links adult volunteers online with individual elementary students who can benefit by extra reading support. These students have a computer set up in their classrooms and through a unique app can read while being coached remotely by a volunteer who may be located in their home, office or even on a vacation trip as long as one has a web connection.

Originally Vello was staffed by teams of employees at VSUW partner companies, but we have created a team of Retired United participants to support a specific school and class. This has worked well as I can personally attest! You can get a feel for the program at Vello Video Library.

We are seeking ASURA members who would be interested in developing an additional team of volunteers to support another school

While we always accept donations, there is no giving requirement to participate and you can sign up for free. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact John Hamilton, Retire United Chair or me at John.Milikin@asu.edu or (602)370-2941.

Employee Hearing Screening

The ASU Speech and Hearing Clinic is holding free fifteen-minute hearing screenings on the various ASU campuses. The test includes:

• A pure-tone test to determine if hearing levels are at or below the screening levels at key speech frequencies.
• A tympanogram measurement to determine middle ear function.
• An otoscopic evaluation to determine if outer ear issues such as cerumen ear wax or other problems need attention.

Polytechnic campus

Monday, February 3 | 8 a.m. – 10 a.m.

Student Union, Cooley ballroom A

Appointments required 

West campus

Monday, February 10 | 8 a.m. – 10 a.m.

UCB 265

Appointments required

Downtown Phoenix campus

Monday, February 17 | 8 a.m. – 10 a.m.

UCENT 580A

Appointments required

Tempe Campus

Monday, February 24 | 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.

ASU Speech and Hearing Clinic - Coor Hall, 2^nd Floor (follow the signs)

Appointments required