The trouble with retirement is you never get a day off.
— Abe Leamons
Communication, Contribution and Collegiality
The Retirement Association aims to help you stay in touch with the friends you made while working at SF State, keep you informed about campus changes and retiree activism and concerns, provide social events and learning opportunities for its members and help support the campus and its employees.
We welcome all retired employees of the University — Emeritus and retired faculty, staff, administrators, and their partners or spouses. As a member of this association, staff and administrators are also welcome to join the CSU-Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFSA).
What We Do
Travel Grants
We accept donations to award grants to faculty and staff for career-related, professional development travel. The Travel Grants Committee reviews applications and makes awards annually based on merit. In alternate years, the grants are offered to faculty and staff. This continues to be a highly successful program that provides critically needed support to faculty and staff.
Advocacy
In recent years, the Board members have been lobbying the University administration regarding the need for a Staff Emeritus policy extending benefits of interest to some such as retaining their university email account. A few other CSU campuses have model policies we have been advocating. Although there has been some interest, to date there has not been a policy approved at the Presidential level. Our Board, via our liaison to the statewide CSU Emeritus and Retired Faculty and Staff Association (ERFSA), has also been advocating for ERFSA membership for retired staff from any campus. At present, only staff members of local campus retiree organizations may join ERFSA.
Social Activities
The Retirement Association traditionally has two luncheons a year at restaurants in San Francisco or the northern Peninsula. The November holiday lunch also includes a short business meeting. The spring lunch is typically on or near St. Patrick's Day where there is usually no speaker as a survey of the members wanted these lunches to be primarily social. We see friends and colleagues from SF State to talk to about what we are doing now, what's happening on campus, and to reminisce about "the good old days."
We organize outings and tours to interesting local places and co-sponsor those outings and speaker programs with the University Women’s Association or the Friends of the Library. Recent events included tours of the newly refurbished Coit Tower, docent-led tours of the Romberg Tiburon Center, 49ers Stadium, and Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park. Our Mare Island tour was so popular we had two of them. It featured a guided bus tour of historic sites in the Naval Shipyard including a chapel with Tiffany stained glass windows, a waterfront lunch, and a tour of a World War II "Mighty Midget" gunboat that our colleague Bill Mason has spent years helping to acquire and refurbish.
Publications
The Gater Retiree Gazette is published about three times per year to keep members informed about Association activities, member activities (e.g., books published), and campus happenings. Our liaisons to CSU-ERSFA, Friends of the Library, and University Women’s Association provide news from those organizations as well. ERSFA (Emeritus and Retired Faculty and Staff Association) updates cover important topics such as the State budget, CalPERS developments, long-term care, and other items of interest to retirees from the CSU. Resident campus historian Meredith Eliassen occasionally contributes the “San Francisco State’s History Corner” about some aspects of campus history.
Every other year we distribute a Membership Directory listing current members with their addresses, phone numbers, and emails in case you want to contact a former colleague.