Retirees honored at annual banquet

By: Ashlei Maltman/City Reporter & Colleen Kitka/Staff Reporter

Posted: 5/13/08

More than 60 Eastern faculty and staff members have retired or plan to retire during the 2007-08 academic year.

Eastern President Bill Perry came to congratulate and honor the staff for their many years of service at a formal dinner that annually recognizes those employees who are retiring from Eastern.

One such employee, Julie Sterling, came from Academic Advising.

She started at Eastern in 1981 as coordinator for academic test administration and as academic adviser. In the late 1980s, she was contracted to advising.

As academic adviser, Sterling worked with incoming freshmen, undecided transfer students and students waiting to be admitted into a department. In previous years, Eastern averaged 60 retirees from every corner of the institution.

"In many cases, the process to hire people to replace one who is retiring is started when we learn of the planned retirement," said Blair Lord, vice president of academic affairs and provost of Eastern.

"Nevertheless, we do replace many of those who retire because the work they do needs to continue to be done in approximately the fashion in which they have been doing it," he said.

Lord oversees the faculty positions and the filling of vacancies left by the retirees.

"All of us at Eastern deeply appreciate the many contributions that each of the retiring employees have made over their years working for Eastern," he said.

Sterling said her favorite part about the job was working with the students and taking all their interests and putting it into an academic plan so they could begin to meet their life career goals. For many years, she worked with incoming freshmen to help them decide what to do in life. She now equates retirement to feeling like a freshman. She said she does not know what her next step will be because there are so many things to see and do.

"It's been fun and challenging, and I'm very blessed in choosing a career I wanted to follow," Sterling said.

Ashlei Maltman and Colleen Kitka can be reached at 581-7942 or at anmaltman@eiu.edu or crkitka@eiu.edu.