Shortly after my formal retirement in 2002, Vassar called me back to serve as Acting President again in 2003-2004 during Fran Fergusson’s sabbatical.
Then I was invited to join the American University in Cairo as the founding Executive Director and Visiting Professor in the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Centre for American Studies and Research at the university. I spent two very interesting and challenging years there.
Returning to Poughkeepsie in 2006, I continued to be active in local volunteer organizations, particularly the Gillespie Forum and the World Affairs Council of the Mid-Hudson Valley. I serve on both boards and have just completed a two-year term as President of the World Affairs Council. I have also been lecturing fairly regularly for the Center for Lifetime Studies and occasionally in other venues.
In 2011 I served as facilitator for the first Indian Higher Education Administrators Seminar in the US, working with a group of senior Indian administrators on an educational tour of selected American institutions of higher education under the auspices of the Council on International Education and the US-India Educational Foundation.
I continue to do some work for the college - as a member of the Steering Committee for the Sesquicentennial, and occasional speaker for alumnae/i clubs and classes. I learned new skills during the Sesquicentennial by curating a Library exhibit on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s connections to the College.
Sipra and I continue to escort alumnae/i study trips to India from time to time. We also had the opportunity of leading a couple of educational tours for the National Geographic Society.
I volunteer as a certified Ombudsman in a long-term care facility and as a sometime driver taking senior citizens to medical appointments for Friends of Seniors and for Home Matters.
All in all, it seems to be a busy, varied and happy “retirement.”
Posted: January 2012