RALUT

Retired Academics and Librarians of the University of Toronto

Archive

Welcome to our archives page. This will be a repository for recent announcements that are no longer current as well as for links to important documents from our past.

University in the Community

University in the Community is a program sponsored by Woodsworth College, Davenport Perth Neighbourhood Centre and the Workers' Educational Association and funded primarily by the Trillium Foundation. Since 2003, it has been offering courses to about 20 students under the direction of Professor J. Barbara Rose of Woodsworth College and Anne McDonagh of Anne McDonagh Consulting. The program is at a crossroads. It has received the maximum amount of Trillium Funding available and Woodsworth College cannot afford to assist further. It is threatened with closure. The organizers would like to develop and advisory committee, raise money to ensure an independent existence and develop a roster of professors who are willing to teach a course (two hours per week for 10 weeks) or deliver a lecture or two. RALUT members can contribute accordingly. They may wish to join Friends of University in the Community, help with the fundraising or be willing to teach a course. For further information, please contact Anne McDonagh at 100 Quebec Avenue, Unit 507, by phone at 416-762-6180, or by email at anne.mcdonagh@hotmail.com.

Older Drivers Study

Colleagues are invited to participate in CanDRIVE, a study sponsored by the Canadian Driving Research Initiative for Vehicular Safety in the Elderly, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It will focus on factors that affect the abilities of older drivers and help develop a test that can be used to identify high-risk drivers. An article appears in the most recent RALUT Reporter; it was reprinted from page 4 of the June 9, 2009 issue of the U of T Bulletin. To access the latter, conjure up http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bulletin.html and click on Previous issues. For information on how to participate in the study, please call Novlette Fraser at 416-597-3422, extension 7851 or email her at fraser.novlette@torontorehab.on.ca. You must be at least 70 and drive at least once a week.

ARC's Speakers Bureau

As part of its mandate "to facilitate and encourage retirees' involvement and contribution to the larger community beyond the University", the Academic Retiree Centre is forming a Speakers' Bureau. This will list retired faculty, librarians and senior administrators who are willing to give talks or lead discussions on their subjects of expertise. The list will be sent to schools, seniors. homes, service clubs and other organizations in the GTA community. When ARC receives requests for speakers, the ARC Administrator will contact the person requested or an appropriate member of the BUREA, if the request indicates a topic but not a speaker. Members of the Bureau who decide to speak will decide whether they wish to accept the invitation. The Bureau's policy is not to charge a speaker's fee. However, Bureau speakers may accept any honoraria that are offered as well as reimbursement for travel expenses. If you are willing to be a member of the ARC Speakers Bureau, please contact academic.retiree@utoronto.ca, indicating your name and telephone number, a brief description with keywords of your field of interest and topics on which you would be willing to speak and times when you would be available. We hope that you will contribute to this program of sharing the wealth and experience of our retiree community with the larger community. We look forward to hearing from you.

Toronto Round Table

We invite your participation in the Toronto Round Table, a University of Toronto institution founded as a discussion group in 1905. Today, it continues as an informal lunch club that meets at Hart House on the second Wednesday of each month from October to May. The meetings start with buffet lunch at 12 noon, followed by a talk at 12:45 pm. There is usually an opportunity for questions. We adjourn shortly after 1:30 pm. Our speakers are drawn from academia, the arts and public life. At our December meeting, Professor Marion Boulby of Trent University will speak on "Islam and the West in the Middle East". Our winter and spring list of speakers will be available shortly. The annual membership is $30 for singles and $40 for doubles. The charge for lunch is $15, collected at the door. If you are interested, please contact the Treasurer, Nicholas Woodbridge at nickwb@rogers.com.

Benefits Bulletin

According to an article on the CARP website, the Ontario Divisional Court has ruled that the Minister of Health has no general discretion to reimburse Canadians for urgent medical services received outside Canada if they did not get prior approval. The General Manager of the Out of Country Medical Program has discretion only in very limited circumstances where the facts of the case preclude prior approval, such as the unavailability of the referring physician to make the application, or the lack of assurance of space in an Ontario hospital for an urgent diagnostic test. In these specific cases, the Ministry must be able to provide retroactive approval where prior approval cannot be obtained. The lack of a general discretion means that, except in these very specific circumstances, applicants for reimbursement will be denied if they do not have prior approval. A more complete account of this issue is on the Senior Scholars information website http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/ssc/. We suggest that if you are planning to travel, you check out Green Shield policy on medical services outside of Ontario as well as the OHIP policy.

Inconvenient Truths About The Pension Plan

In this time of economic turmoil, you may be wondering about your pension plan. While pensioners are assured of continuing payouts (unless the university goes bankrupt), cost-of-living augmentations and benefits are still a matter of negotiation between UTFA and the Administration. Unfortunately, the University does not appear to have been a very good steward of the pension fund, so members of RALUT may find it informative to read recent UTFA newsletters on the administration of the plan. Go to their website at www.utfa.org, scroll to the bottom of the home page where you can click on the Newsletters of October 24 and November 17 of this year, under the headings ``Inconvenient truths about the U of T pension plan'', Parts I, II and Appendix. You can also access presentations made to the Business Board by clicking on Salaries, Benefits and Pensions in the left margin of the home page, and then to Pension issues. Also, on the Salaries, Benefits and Pensions page, clicking on Bargaining updates will take you to the most recent settlement of salary and benefits negotiations.

ROTMAN International Journal of Pension Management

The third issue of the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management is now available. Its theme is New Insights into Pension Management, Design and Shareholder Stewardshup.Individual articles can be downloaded at no charge and hard copies of the Journal can be ordered at a cost of $50 (Canadian) per copy by visiting http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca.icpm/details.aspx?ContentID=223. Press Release Attached: http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/news/detail.asp?ID=497

The twenty-five Research Partners of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management decided to invest in this venture because they believe that the pension world is ready for a publication that focusses strictly on the strategic management challenges facing the fiduciaries of organizations that accumulate and deliver pensions to millions of pension plan members around the globe. Work is already underway on the fourth issue of the Jounral, slated for Spring, 2010.

Enquiries may be directed to Ann Henhoeffer(icpm@rotman.utoronto.ca), the Associate Director of Operations and Planning.

The BLackburn Room At The Library

A conference and classroom is being refurbished in the Robarts Library complex in honour of Robert H. Blackburn, the Chief Librarian of the University of Toronto covering the period 1954-1981 which saw enormous growth and development of the library. A drive is underway to raise $100,000 for the project; all members of the University are invited to contribute. For a letter from the current Chief Librarian and a donation form, please visit the website http://www.library.utoronto.ca/development/blackburn-classroom.html.

Retired Scientist Forum

On January 11, 2006, a meeting of retired colleagues was held at the faculty club to discuss policies and resources at the University for retirees. You can read a transcript of the session of the Retired scientists' forum.