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j~ampus News
103 to retire early Universitywide program designed to hel p campuses re invest in "mission enhance ment" areas
Film cri tic Gil berto Perez, above, gets around. He was born in Cuba and ed ucated at MIT and Princeton, where he studied phys ics. He later earned a fe llowshi p in visual arts from The M useum of Modern Art in New York City. A nd th en he was a facul ty fe llow at Harvard and a fi lm stu dies professor at Sarah L awrence Col lege. Now the versati le Perez is com ing to UMR , where he wil l be the f irst M axwell C. Weiner Mi sso uri Distin gui shed Professor of Hu manities . Author of Mare rial Ghosr: Films alld rheir Medium, Perez wi ll j oi n the UMR Engli sh facul ty thi s fa ll and teach co urses in f ilm studies and in other areas of interes t. Establi shed by an estate gi ft in 1999 , the Maxwel l C. Weiner Mi ssouri D istingui shed Professorship for the Humani ties is to be rotated annu all y or biennial ly among three departments within the UMR Co l lege of Arts and Sc iences. Each department will use the professorship to attract distingu ished faculty members like Perez to UMR in th e areas of Engli sh, hi story and pol iti ca l science , or phil osoph y and liberal arts. Wei ner, EE '41 , lived in B all w in , Mo ., at th e time of hi s death in 1998. He studied l iberal arts and humani ties courses at th e Uni versity of Hawa ii and at Washington University in St. LOlli s. He was retired from Westinghouse Electri c Corp. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CAMPUS NEWS, CONTACT THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS AT 573-341-4328 OR VIA E-MAIL AT NEWSINFO@UMR EDU I
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MSM ·U~ IR ALUMNUS I SUllllller 2000
A lot of fami liar faces are leaving UMR as the resu lt of an early retirement program. A total of 103 of the 21 1 UMR employees elig ible for the program - 48.8 percent in allhave taken the un iversity up on the offer. Fifty-eight are UMR facul ty members, and 45 are UMR staff members. The Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program (VER IP), approved by the Un iversity of Missouri Board of Cura tors in December, allows employees who are at least 55 years old and have at least 10 years of service to retire without reduced benefits. Those taking part in the program must retire by Sept 1. The VER IP initiative is designed to release funds to allow each UM campus to invest more into "mission enhancement" areas - focused programs or initiatives designed to strengthen the campuses. At UMR, the mission enhancement areas are in environmental engineering and science, geotechnical engineering, infrastructure engineering, manufacturing, materia ls engineering and science, and student leadership. More than 800 facu lty and staff are taking early ret irement from the four campuses and the central administration . After filling vacated positions, the university expects to have $10 million to infuse into mission enhancement programs systemwide.
Leadership changes At UMR, the retirements wi ll result in several transitions in leadership. Not on ly is Chancellor John 1 Pa rk taking early reti rement (see story beginning on page 6), but so are these campus leaders: • Wayne eDgell , chair of philosophy and liberal arts since 1989 and a faculty member since 1983. • Nord Gale, chair of biological sciences (formerly life sciences) since 1983 and a faculty member since 1980. • Richard D. Hagni. PhD GGPh'62, cha ir of geology and geophys ics since 1985 and a faculty member since 1956. • James Hahn , EE'59, PhD EE'77, director of the UMR Engineering Education Center in St Louis. • Edward Hale, chair of physics since 1992 and a faculty member since 1969. • John D. Rockaway Jr., chair of geology and geophysics during two stints - from 1981 to 1987 and since 1992 and a faculty member since 1968. • John W, Wil son, chair and professor of min ing engineering since 1990. In all, more tilan 14 percent of UMR's full-time tenure-track faculty are taking the early reti rement program . Several will be back on campus as part-time instructors to ease the transition .
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