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Report of the President
In 2024–25 EPIC set new records in almost every respect, more than doubling membership, tripling contributions, mounting an expanded program of activities, and engaging in robust advocacy by its Retired Officers Medical Benefit Committee.
It expanded its newsletter to include regular listings of upcoming events of interest to retirees. Thanks to Professor Emerita Carol Liebman, EPIC started developing an Aging Support Network through which EPIC members will be able to compare notes and secure support in locating home health service providers, temporary care outside the home, and information about senior communities including assisted living, independent living, memory care, and skilled nursing services. It also hopes to establish a support group for those who are caretakers of loved ones in decline. Those interested should be in touch with the EPIC office.
Thanks to Professor Emeritus Eli Noam, EPIC organized what we hope will be an annual finance webinar focused on how best to invest your retirement nest egg. The long-standing webinar on changes in tax regulations relating to retirees will continue.
While EPIC has long been open to retired senior officers of administration, research, and libraries, it has had no systematic way of soliciting their participation. Thanks to Associate Provost Amy Rabinowitz and Human Resources, EPIC has started to solicit memberships from retiring senior administrators. EPIC will be given new retiree lists each year going forward. While we remain primarily an association of retired faculty from Columbia and its affiliated institutions, we already added seven officers of administration and research to our ranks this year.
Below are some statistics that detail the scope of EPIC this past year:
- EPIC hosted 25 events, seven in Faculty House, eight in spaces generously provided free of charge by the Law School, six in the EPIC office in Philosophy Hall, and a chamber music play-in, also in Philosophy Hall (thanks to Professors Emeriti Carolyn Greenberg and Steve Stellman).
- EPIC organized online access to 14 of these events including the two finance-related webinars, which were online only.
- EPIC served food and drink at these events to some 450 people.
- EPIC’s Drama Society met six times across the year (thanks to Professor Emerita Connie Nathanson).
- EPIC hosted weekly yoga online and monthly in-person yoga across the year (thanks to Professor Emerita Virginia Papaionnou and Lalla Grimes)
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To date this year, EPIC has received dues/contributions of $35,055 from 263 retirees as compared to $14,650 from 112 retirees in 2023–24.
- The Chalmers Graduate Student Lecture Award took off this year. For the first time, in October it made two $1,500 awards, one for the Fall semester, and another for the Spring semester. This year’s awards went to postdocs in Sociology and Political Science respectively, though eligibility for the award includes graduate students who are in the process of completing their dissertation as well. We already have seven full applications for the 2025–26 award, thanks to the continuing efforts of Professor Emeritus Daniel Thys and his committee of Professors Emeritae Frances Pritchett and Heidi Rotterdam.
- Thanks to the Music Performance Program in the Music Department EPIC held two student chamber music concerts bringing recognition, an audience, and performance stipends to talented undergraduate performers.
I wish to acknowledge Professor Emerita Linda Lewis, Vice President of EPIC, who has been a full partner in making all this happen, participating in some 35 weekly meetings. She deserves your thanks.
We are well along in shaping next year’s program with the help of Professor Emeritus Peter Messeri, curator of the EPIC Conversations, Professors Emeriti Linda Lewis and Ron Drusin, and retired associate General Counsel Michael Feiler who are helping recruit speakers. But please send us any suggestions you may have. Volunteers to mount new initiatives, please identify yourselves!
EPIC’s Medical Benefit Committee forged a partnership with the Education Policy and Planning Committee of the Arts and Science in its advocacy for improvements in the retiree Medical Benefit. Our Committee includes four members of the Steering Committee and three other EPIC members.[1] Thanks to EPIC’s efforts, the initial subsidy of $220/qualified retiree and $110/qualified spouse in 2023, was increased to $1,500/retiree and $750 per spouse in 2025. A further increase for 2026 is in the works. Eligibility was expanded to include all officers who retired in 2012 or later.
In 2024–25, EPIC’s Committee has met three times with University senior administrators including former Interim President Katrina Armstrong, and meetings continue. We thank the administration for sharing on a confidential basis some of the details about how the Trust Fund, which finances retiree medical benefits, is organized, how funds are invested and allocated, its returns, and projected costs of financing benefits going forward. That discussion continues. The Committee continues to advocate for a further expansion of eligibility for the benefit as well as an increase in the benefit itself.
Planning for the Future of EPIC
In the Fall, EPIC submitted to the Provost’s Office a detailed multi-year plan approved by its Steering Committee. It said in part:
“EPIC is at an inflection point. The organization’s scope and reach now make it unrealistic to expect a volunteer retiree to run the organization, supervise its Assistant Director, fundraise, and represent the organization in the wider university. EPIC needs a paid part-time administrative leader, working at least 15 hours a week. This role could be filled either by a full-time staff member in the Provost’s Office, some portion of whose responsibility would be to serve as Executive Director of EPIC, or, perhaps more likely, by a retired or retiring faculty member with demonstrated administrative skills, or a retired or retiring administrator with extensive experience working with Columbia faculty. The person in this role should be hired jointly by the Provost’s Office and the President of EPIC. EPIC cannot go forward more than a year or two without a paid part-time Executive Director.
We asked that the University commit $40,000 plus fringe beginning in FY27 to pay the salary of an Executive Director, as described above. EPIC is willing to share responsibility with the Provost’s Office for financing its activities. We are committed to substantial increases in our fundraising goals and to using a portion of the fund balances in the near term in the hope that over time fundraising yields will, together with the University’s incremental increases in EPIC’s OTPS allocation, reach a steady state.”
Summary of Decisions Made at the General Membership Meeting on May 6, 2025
Effective July 1, first-year dues for new members will be $100/year; renewal dues will be $125/year. This increase, voted by the membership at its General Meeting on May 6, 2025, is the first increase ever in EPIC’s dues.
The EPIC Charter, posted on the EPIC website was updated with a number of minor editorial changes. The major substantive change was adding an appointee of the Provost to the Steering Committee of EPIC, 14 members plus the officers of the organization. Associate Provost and Director of the Office of Work/Life, Amy Rabinowitz, will be that appointee with voice but without vote.
A non-salary operating budget for 2025–26 of $80,000 was approved by the membership, an increase of approximately $4,000 over what will have been spent in 2024–25. It should be noted that EPIC began in 2023–24 to use some of its gift income to subsidize program activities, and that dependence will grow in future years. Increased membership, contributions by members in excess of the minimum membership fee, and a continuing subsidy from the Provost taken together will permit EPIC to flourish.
The following persons were elected as officers and members of the Steering Committee:
President: Frank Wolf, Dean Emeritus, School of Professional Studies (Political Science)
Vice President: Linda Lewis, Clinical Professor Emerita (Neurology)
Secretary: Lalla Grimes, retired administrator
Steering Committee
Michael E. Feiler, Associate General Counsel (Retired), Office of the General Counsel
Paula Goodman, Retired Administrator, Former Director of Recruitment, Central Human Resources
Paula Goodman, Retired Senior Administrator, former Director of Recruitment for Central Human Resources
Carolyn Greenberg, Professor Emerita of Clinical Anesthesiology
Allen I. Hyman, Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology
Carol B. Liebman, Clinical Professor Emerita of Law; Director of Clinical Education; Special Lecturer
Peter Alan Messeri, Professor Emeritus of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center; Special Research Scientist in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences
Constance Nathanson, Special Research Scientist of Social Sciences, Department of Sociomedical Sciences
Eli Noam, Paul Garrett Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Business Responsibility
Virginia E. Papaioannou, Professor Emerita of Genetics and Development; Special Lecturer in Genetics and Development
Robert E. Pollack, Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences
Don Sexton, Professor Emeritus of Business; Special Lecturer in Business and Professor Emeritus of Business
Jeanne Mager Stellman, Professor Emerita of Clinical Health Policy and Management
Peter Strauss, Betts Professor Emeritus of Law; Special Lecturer in Law
Daniel Thys, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Anesthesiology
Ex Officio member, Amy Rabinowitz, Associate Provost and Director of the Office of Work/Life
Emeriti Steering Committee Members
Volker Berghahn, Seth Low Professor Emeritus of History; Special Lecturer in History
Frances Pritchett, Professor Emerita of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
Michael Rosenthal, Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature
Elliott Sclar, Professor Emeritus of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Special Research Scholar in the Center for Sustainable Urban Development in the Earth Institute; Special Lecturer in Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Best wishes to all for a good summer.
[1] The Committee includes Michael Feiler, Retired Associate General Counsel; Professor Emerita Alice Kessler-Harris (History); Professor Emeritus Eli Noam (Business); Professor Emerita Carol Sanger (Law); Professor Emerita Jane Spinak (Law); Professor Emeritus Peter Strauss (Law), and Frank Wolf, Dean Emeritus, School of Professional Studies.
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