The first paper presented at the Emeritus Center concerned Thomas Jefferson and his rather complicated feelings about slavery. The next will take up the life of Alexander Semmler, a concert pianist and composer. The one after that will address higher education in the former Czechoslovakia.

"I'm working on an Aristotle piece," said William Reese, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Albany and president of the Emeritus Center. "I'll read some of it when we get a need, but we're booked through next year."

The center, which the university opened in November, is housed in a refurbished room in the administration building. Its significance reaches far beyond.

With it, the college "formally values retired members of United University Professions" - the NYSUT affiliate that represents SUNY faculty and professional staff - as participants in the academic community, said UUP President William Scheuerman.

The center will enable these scholars of science, philosophy, arts and history to enrich students and faculty. Mentoring and tutorials for the Honors College are possibilities.

Intellectual clubhouse

In the meantime, the center provides an intellectual clubhouse for an interdisciplinary group that Reese calls "the living memory of the university." Computers have been installed to encourage emeriti to conduct research here. The room has been hung with paintings they have created and bookshelves are expected to fill with their publications. So far attendance has been brisk.

"At our last two events I overheard one guy say to another, 'Oh boy, I haven't been on this campus in nine years.' The other one said, 'I haven't been here for 11 years, and I'm seeing people I haven't seen for dozens of years,'" said Reese, who is 85. "Unless I'm mistaken, great bonds have gotten established."

Like many retired professors, leaving teaching has meant more time for scholarship. Alvin Magid, 69, has stepped up his work in political science since retiring in 2002. He recently spent six weeks in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, as a Fulbright scholar. As he examines the progress of that new country, he will present his findings to the Emeritus Center.

Iliana Semmler taught American literature until 1997. After retirement she audited music courses. Now, she is writing a memoir on her father, Alexander Semmler, a conductor and pianist for the CBS Orchestra.

"I'm going to report on it at the Emeritus Center," said Semmler, who is 74. "It's a very comfortable audience. It's an audience of people who would understand what you're about. On the other hand it's not a critical audience."

Semmler is a University at Albany graduate. But alumni mailings, like updates on college sports, never interested her.

There are emeritus centers at other SUNY campuses also, including Buffalo and Cortland.

Candace Merbler, the UUP Albany chapter president, witnesses firsthand the intellectual connection retired faculty and staff retain.

"As a librarian at the university I see them come in all the time," said Merbler, a reference support associate at the library. "For UUP members, the center shows that when our members leave teaching it does not mean an end of their meaningful and productive research."

Getting here took 30 years. Reese, who taught part-time until last year, first suggested a campus gathering place for retired professors in the 1970s. Despite the enthusiasm of various administrators, the project was consistently derailed. Once, a president retired and the next one didn't sign on. Another time, Reese said, the organization planned a summer launch only to be told that the New York Giants needed the space for its training camp.

The Emeritus Center might have been put off yet again when University at Albany President Kermit Hall, who ran with the idea as soon as he heard it, died suddenly last summer. The tragedy prompted six delays in the opening ceremonies, but Hall's enthusiasm ultimately won out. At the November opening he was named a research fellow posthumously.

But after all of that, William Reese was not even present at the opening ceremony because he was hospitalized with an infection.

"I kept picturing who should be coming in at what time and who would be speaking and who would be saying what," said Reese, who has been available for all subsequent events.

- Jane Gottlieb