Good Afternoon ARF Members,

I hope all of you are well and enjoying this beautiful summer weather.  For those of you who could not join us for the ARF Annual Business meeting on May 20th I want to summarize the election results and acknowledge the work of our amazing Board.  Following are the officers and at large members for the ARF Board beginning in the 2020/2021 academic year.

• President-Susan Dennison
• Vice-President-Betsy Lindsey
• Secretary-Barbara Levin
• Treasurer-Ken Caneva
• At Large Member-Vicki McCready
• At Large Member-Nancy Ryckman
• At Large Member-Diane Gill
• At Large Member-Lyn Mankoff
• Provost Appointment-Tim Johnston

A big thank you to all these members of our Board who continue to ensure that this organization grows, responds to the needs of our members, helps retired faculty stay connected to the University, and ensures that we provide stimulating and relevant programs for our members.  I want to particularly thank Vicki McCready who has served for the past two years as the ARF secretary and has done an outstanding job recording our meetings and ensuring that we have accurate minutes of the Board’s decisions particularly during these initial years.  In addition, I want to thank Steve Yarbrough who served on the initial Steering Committee when we were planning this organization.  Steve has very generously volunteered the past three years to maintain our ARF web site.  This role has involved lots of time and work which we so appreciate particularly since Steve is still working full-time.  Fortunately, Tim Johnston was able to help ARF secure time from the College tech person who has now taken over this role.

I also want to thank Dana Dunn, who we recognized at this meeting, since this was her last time attending as Provost.  I am attaching the ARF Board letter to Dana which highlights only some of the ways she was instrumental in getting this organization started and ensuring it would be sustainable.  We are delighted that Dana is a lifetime member of ARF and look forward to seeing her at future events.

ARF will begin its next academic year of programs in late September.  In view of COVID-19, the Board has decided that all programs in the fall will be on zoom.   We have several exciting programs and speakers we are considering and will get the dates/time details to you later this summer.  If you did not attend the business meeting last week you might want to check out on the attached PowerPoint summary of this year’s events and those tentatively being planned for fall 2020.

I hope you have a safe and fun summer and we look forward to seeing you at our fall programs!

Sue Dennison, ARF President