UC emeriti ready to work with international partners

UC International has begun working with the UC Emeriti Association to involve our retired faculty in the university’s international outreach.

Our partners around the world often express an interest in having senior UC faculty and staff make extended visits for teaching or consulting. Visits like that can be difficult to schedule around the academic calendar and other obligations.

“These people are fully engaged, and so they might be able to come over a spring break or to break loose for short periods of time,” explains emeritus George Vredeveldt, who co-chairs the Emeriti Association committee overseeing the initiative. “We can spend a little more time. Our calendars are a lot more flexible than they used to be.” In response to a poll, emeriti said they could be available for trips averaging three ot six weeks.

In the same poll, emeriti said that their strongest interest is in teaching (58 percent), followed by curriculum design, research or creative work and consulting on academic or administrative issues.

These emeriti are specialists in a wide range of subjects, including medicine, performing arts, architecture, economics, urban planning and more. “Their years of experience and subject expertise are an extraordinary resource for us to draw on and to offer to our partners,” says Vice Provost for International Affairs Raj Mehta.

In addition to the greater ease of their schedules and their years of subject expertise, many of the emeriti have considerable experience in international education and have long-established relationships with institutions around the globe. Vredeveldt, an emeritus of the Lindner College of Business (LCB) Department of Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance and Risk Management, has worked for 25 years with Varna Free University in Bulgaria.

Often, the emeriti can bring language skills to the table, too. Anne-Marie Jézéquel, a native of Brittany, is an emerita of Romance Languages & Literatures, where she specialized in 20th-century French and Quebec literature. She has been leading students on language and cultural immersion programs in France and Canada for the last 10 years.

Ralph Katerberg, emeritus of LCB’s Management Department, has just returned from Future University in Egypt, where he taught undergraduate courses on international human resources management and on compensation and rewards. He continues to work with a team of FUE business faculty on the school's initial application for international AACSB accreditation.

Collectively, UC’s emeritus faculty are willing to travel around the globe. UC International is prepared to work with our strategic partners or to help broker arrangements with other universities interested in having our emeriti visit.

Featured image at top: Professor Emerita Anne Marie Jézéquel (second from right) lectures to students at a millinery design studio in Brittany. Photo courtesy of Anne Marie Jézéquel.