Wisdom Institute: UMBC’s Association for Retirees

Welcome!

Diane

The UMBC community, like other universities, is experiencing an increase in retirements as baby boomers mature. Recognizing this demographic shift, more campuses are creating formal programs to channel the knowledge and energy retired faculty and staff can continue to provide to their university community. Importantly, campuses also continue to provide opportunities for retirees that offer personal and social enrichment. UMBC is no exception.

The Wisdom Institute (WI), was founded in 2018 and is UMBC’s Association for Retirees. We welcome all staff and faculty to join us and continue to engage with one another and with UMBC. There is no cost for membership; we are lifelong members of the UMBC family. We come together to enhance connections:

Among staff, faculty, and students both past and present.
With the ongoing life and growth of the University.
By offering a menu of possibilities that benefit retirees, the campus, and the broader community.

The concept of community is central to this organization. Community from the Old French communite referenced “commonness, everybody.” The Latin communitatum was “merely a noun of quality” meaning “community, society, fellowship, friendly intercourse…” and communis “common, public, general, shared by all or many.” In English, community refers to “a sense of society, or association of persons having common interests or occupations.” (Online etymology) The WI offers opportunities to all retirees for continued connection with the campus community consistent with the focus on community embodied in the root meaning of the word community.

Recognizing community as a seminal theme, all retirees will automatically be members of the WI upon retirement. Persons already retired are “grandfathered” into the WI. Life partners of retirees are offered status as Affiliate members. Upon request, former UMBC employees who retired from another institution and who wish to join the WI can do as as Affiliate members.

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