Peter Herron remembers a time when Suffolk Community College was so new that he regularly heard people ask, "Community college? What's that?" when he mentioned where he worked.

By the time Herron retired in 1995, the community college mission and message had reached a wide audience. But Herron knows there is still work to be done on behalf of the community college system and the pioneering faculty and staff who represent its first group of retirees.

Now, as president of NYSUT's Retiree Council 39, formed in 2006 to represent community college retirees, Herron is busy with a lengthy to-do list.

The council has started a newsletter and is getting a Web site under way. In addition to Herron, the council's leadership includes Vice President Lou Stollar; Secretary Corita Kong; Treasurer Joan Prymas; and directors-at-large Tom Halsall and Ann Smallen.

At the NYSUT Retiree Contiguous Election District meeting in October, Herron represented the council for the first time as its new president and as a delegate. Kong joined him as an RC 39 delegate and Prymas as an alternate delegate.

Strong voice

An impassioned advocate for community colleges, Herron sees RC 39 as a way for retirees to continue promoting community colleges.

"We can make them aware of issues that can affect all retirees in general, and retirees from community colleges in particular," he said. "We can give feedback on issues."

NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue agreed with Herron that community college retirees have "an important voice" to offer colleagues and their statewide union.

"Many of the people who started in the community college system in the early years have valuable institutional memory and experience to offer," said Donahue, whose office oversees retiree issues for NYSUT.

Community colleges, Herron said, reach a large number of non-traditional students and offer opportunities to people who missed out on a college degree.

"This is a chance for them to come back," said Herron, who had one student become an astronaut. Others became doctors, lawyers and teachers.

Herron always wanted to teach. He briefly taught at a junior high school on Long Island, and joined the faculty at Suffolk in 1963. He spent his career on the Ammerman Campus in Selden, and still recalls the feeling of getting in on the ground floor of a new idea.

"It was very exciting, because the possibilities were endless," he said. "I thought I had died and gone to heaven."

Six years ago, Herron helped organize the Retiree Association of Suffolk Community College, with the help of Ellen Schuler Mauk, president of the Faculty Association of Suffolk CC, and the college administration.

"That went well, and then in the early spring of '06, Ellen contacted me and said NYSUT was thinking of forming a retiree council for community colleges," Herron recalled.

For Herron, there is the added feeling that he's contributing once again to a system in which he's always believed.

"This was where I spent my whole professional life," Herron said of Suffolk Community College. "I loved the place, and I still love it."

— Darryl McGrath