March brings breezes loud and shrill,
To stir the dancing daffodil. – Sara Coleridge from The Months in Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children
In March the earth remembers its own name.
Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.
The rivers begin to sing. - Mary Oliver Warm Moon in the collection Twelve Moons
March quotes were much more upbeat than those of January and February. It was nice to find quotes that mentioned March and were not just addressing some generic time of the year. I found nice quotes/poems by two women poets, one from the early 1800’s and one from the mid 90’s. Interestingly, when I found the quote “March bring breezes . . ” it was attributed to William Wordsworth however when I looked up the source of the quote is turned out to be from a Sara Coleridge poem. If I had found Sara’s poem earlier, I would have been set for each month of the year.
From the Board meeting
It was a fun Board meeting with some interesting information. The material from Kendra Burton is long but I thought she presented information that many of you would find interesting.
- Kendra Burton, University Liaison, reported on activity in the legislature.
- The budget is what ASU most focuses on. ASU has asked for $40M for ASU Health, $20M of which would go directly to the new Medical School. Given the State budget woes, this request has no chance.
- One issue heavily impacting the State budget is tax conformity with the federal tax cuts approved last summer. Complete conformity will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. There will be full conformity this year because the Arizona Department of Revenue has already modified the tax forms to conform with the federal forms. The conformity issue will be addressed in next year’s session; it seems the current legislators are leaning toward full conformity.
- A second issue impacting the budget is the ending of Prop 123. The Prop passed overwhelmingly in 2016 to increase the State Land Trust fund distribution to K-12 education from 2.5% to 6.9% resulting in an additional $300M for the state coffers. This funding ended in June 2025 and the Legislature and the Governor would like to send a ballot measure back to the voters to extend this proposition for another ten years. The difficulty is in the ballot wording. Some would like to see an identical wording to the original Prop 123; others would like to include wording to protect ESA’s (Empowerment Scholarship Account) or to pay teachers.
- There are two bills that concern ASU: guns on campus and restrictions on research. The guns on campus bill is the same bill the House has been trying to pass for the past fourteen years (see Board minutes for January 2012). Kendra felt the bill would not make it to the Governor’s desk.
- It is very likely that ASU will not get additional dollars this year and may be asked for cuts. Work is underway to preserve what ASU currently has in light of expected requests for cuts.
- Arizona has two line items in the state budget that are separate from its general University allocation. These line items are for its two medical schools. ASU is working to get such a line-item for its medical school, even if it is only a token amount – foot in the door approach.
- One last interesting tidbit. The House numbers its bills in the two thousands but there were so many bills introduced they had to go to the four thousands (the Senate uses the one and three thousand). This has never happened before. Many of these House bills never made it to the Senate and died on the vine.
- Student Alumni Association – this is not an oxymoron. Tim Desch, Board member and ASU Alumni Association Ex-Officio (i.e., liaison), explained that the Student Alumni Association is an Alumni Association youth organization, populated by students, to create meaningful Alumni experiences for the students. The goal is to help the students become active alumni when they graduate. Tim was reporting on an upcoming fundraising activity by this group. When asked if this works, Tim said yes and the question was then posed as to whether ASURA should consider a similar program to get retirees ready to become active ASURA retirees. You might be reading about the activities of the ASU Employee Retiree Association in the future.
- Jan Shore, Co-chair of the Scholarship Committee, reported that scholarship applications will be sent out to reviewers this week. A significant number of applications were disqualified due to a failure to either supply two letters of reference or to use professional references, e.g., faculty, boss. Even after the culling, there were a good number of applications. Jan hoped to be able to report on next year’s recipient at the April Board Meeting.
- Karen Moses, ASURA President, presented a proposal, developed by a small ad hoc committee (Karen M, Jan Thompson, and Karen Dwyer). The proposal was to establish “Community Groups” within ASURA with the goal of building a social network among ASU Retirees who live near each other. The positive health effects associated with socialization is well established. Such networks can help ASURA retain its members and get more members involved in the Association. Potential neighborhoods have been identified and I think there was talk of a possible initial effort in one of the neighborhoods as soon as April. This is an exciting new area for ASURA and I hope that if you happen to be in the initially selected neighborhood you will try to participate. Hopefully what worked for the Field of Dreams will work for the Network of Neighbors – if we create it you will come.
Board Member elections
The new Board Member election has now started and will run through March 31st. One hundred and two members, who do not use email, will receive a paper ballot and return envelope; the remaining members will receive an email with a link to either an electronic ballot or a paper ballot. By voting you show support for the candidates and for ASURA. I encourage you all to vote. I would like to see at least 250 returned ballots! It only takes a few minutes if you select an electronic ballot.
March Social Security Column
Jack Burns, Public Affairs specialist for Arizona, Social Security Administration, prepared the following March Social Security Column.
Social Security offers free workshops. Readers can find the workshop schedule at www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org under the “Calendar” tab. Using search term “Medicare” will list all workshops for 2026.
Upcoming Events
There are a variety of activities in March and April:
Last minute news: The Travel Committee is busy again. Look for an email about a possible Canadian Rockies Adventure for next spring. The committee is trying to gauge interest in the trip. It looks very nice.
There are also a number of AROHE (Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education). webinars and newsletters. Listed below are the third and fourth webinars in a five-part series on Charting the Journey to a Fulfilling Retirement. Use the links above to access all the webinars and newsletters.
- Retiring Well – Creating a Personal Action Plan (March 18)
- Discovering Your Purpose in Retirement (April 8)
Don’t forget to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and beware of the ides of March.
Barry McNeill
E-News Editor
