The 16^th annual Retirees Day Program was held on Saturday, February 21, 2009 in the Memorial Union on the Tempe campus. It was well attended, with over 100 registrants.

We began at 8:45 a.m. in the Pima Room of the MU with registration, announcements and a continental breakfast. For many of us, this was our first look at the very nice and comfortable remodeled meeting rooms in the MU.

After the announcements, we moved to two sets of one-hour concurrent sessions (10:00 to 11:00 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.).  The concurrent sessions were all so interesting that it was difficult for attendees to choose among them. Mat Betz gave a very informative talk on "The Sudan: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" at the same time that Matthew Fraser provided an overview of ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability and Sustainability Initiatives and Bruce Merrill presented his knowledgable  "Reflections on a Historic Election". 

Following that first concurrent session we had Stephen K. Happel provide his engaging but sobering analysis of the "Current State of the U.S. and Global Economic Crisis", Juan Jaime de la Torre discussed the challenges of practicing architecture near the U.S.-Mexico border in "Architecture Has no Borders", and Kimberly Ovitt provided an overview of current research activity "Inside the Biodesign Institute".

A tasty lunch was served at 12:30 p.m. in the Ventana Room 241 B/C of the MU.  We were very fortunate that Harry Mitchell, one of our recently re-elected Arizona members to the U.S. House of Congress and former mayor of Tempe, gave us an address on "Congressional Updates," just 30 days after President Barack Obama has been in office. He responded frankly and willingly to questions in the session that followed his remarks.