Retirees look forward to new opportunities

Some 282 UI employees hung up their hats and retired from the University in 2003-04—lucky dogs! Some will stick around and occasionally help out their former colleagues, while others will do their best to make us jealous with exotic travels, leisure-time reading on the porch, and quality gardening.

Three retirees recently shared their plans with fyi.

Joanne Dochterman: Keeping her foot in the door

Retiring now—instead of moving somewhere else and working well into her 70s—means Joanne Dochterman won’t have another title to add to her vitae. But she’s OK with that.

Sometimes living a full life takes precedence over career advancement.

“My philosophy of career opportunities that come everyone’s way is that you need to recognize when a door opens and also decide whether or not it’s really time to go through that door,” says Dochterman, professor of nursing who has been with the College of Nursing for 24 years. “You have to be flexible.”

She decided a few years ago that she would not pass through the doorway that leads to the next rung on the academic ladder. Instead, she plans to spend quality time with Bruce, her husband of five years and fellow retiree who is leaving his job as a maintenance machinist at Quaker Oats in Cedar Rapids.

“Retirement’s not something I thought I’d do at this point in my life, but I decided to rethink it,” she says. “If you can afford it, are healthy, and have someone you enjoy sharing things with, do it while you’re able to enjoy life.”

Dochterman grew up in Vermont and went to schools in New Hampshire, Boston, and Chicago. She followed her former husband to Iowa City when he was offered a teaching job here.

At the beginning of her career, she planned to be a staff nurse. Then she tried being a stay-at-home mom when she had the first of her two children. But it wasn’t for her, she says, so she applied to a master’s degree program, which led to a teaching assistantship, then research, then more education.

She managed to pack a bundle into her vitae along the way. For example, she has been a leader in the Iowa movement to develop standardized nursing languages Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) and Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC)—a revolutionary system that has greatly contributed to UI Hospitals and Clinics’ and other hospitals’ ability to move to electronic record keeping and enhance quality of care.

Dochterman is head of the nursing service administration program at the college, which has been rated the top program in the country since 2000, according to U.S. News & World Report. She is chair of the area of studies department within the college and has written or edited more than a dozen books.

Also, she directs the UI Center for Nursing Classification and Clinical Effectiveness and plans to remain on its executive board in retirement.

Dochterman can’t completely let go of her academic life. Though officially retired after June 30, she will work 20 percent time for a year on a research grant. She might even go back to “school,” this time to get training to be a lay negotiator for the Cedar Rapids small-claims court system. She would help plaintiffs and defendants work out their differences without going through an actual court proceeding.

Most of her retirement will be reserved for her husband, her two children and his two children from a previous marriage, and four grandchildren. The couple plans travel trips to Canada and the Mediterranean.

Dochterman says she will get in a little counted cross-stitching and gardening time. She’ll look after ’Nilla the cocker spaniel and Cosmo the cat. She might even take up knitting and while away a few hours rocking on her Swisher home’s wraparound porch.

“I’ll keep busy. It’ll be a good transition time to a world of nonwork,” she says. “If I get really bored, I’ll have to figure something else out. But I don’t see that happening.”

by Amy Schoon

Bill Hedges: From painting to fishing

Bill Hedges. Photo by Tim Schoon.

Most people eagerly mark off time on the calendar until they reach their retirement date. Not Bill Hedges. He has been as focused as ever on doing his work and doing it well.

His job’s a hard habit to break, considering he has been doing it for 34 years.

“I like getting a job done and feeling like you’ve really accomplished something,” says Hedges, who started as a painter at the Oakdale Campus in 1970 and retired this summer.

Whether it’s a fresh coat on a maintenance building, color on the interior of new construction, or bright yellow lines on the parking lot pavement—it’s there because Hedges picked up his paintbrush.

Even the tried-and-true world of painting has changed in three-and-a-half decades. He recalls a time when he would have painted all the windows on Oakdale Hall while teetering on a 40-foot ladder. A new lift makes that work a lot more stable, he says.

Watching the Oakdale Campus grow has been fun for Hedges, too, having his brush strokes and handiwork part of research facilities such as the National Advanced Driving Simulator.

He also worked from 1961 to 1963 in the dairy operation for the Oakdale State Sanatorium, where he met his wife, Virginia, a nurse who retired a few years ago. They have been married 42 years, live in North Liberty, and have two sons and three grandchildren.

His family may be the one thing, he says, that can drag him away from work. He looks forward to playing and traveling with them.

And a warning to the crappie and walleye in nearby waters: Hedges will have a lot more time to go fishing for the likes of you.

It will be difficult, though, to leave his work family behind. Because he lives in North Liberty, only a short bike ride away from Oakdale, he expects to visit them occasionally.

“My job’s been good for me. I’ve met a lot of interesting people,” he says. “I think I’ll miss the people most…the fellas I work with.”

He has a few helpful hints for whomever will take his place (although his coworkers claim no one could ever truly replace him). He jotted down notes on how to properly mix paints and passed on a tidbit from personal experience—Iowa weather’s bad if you’re trying to dry oil-based primer.

But just in case you think Hedges is working too hard and taking it all too seriously, he does admit that he didn’t get every last project completed before he left.

“I’m not one to leave everything scattered out everywhere, but there will still be work to do,” he says. “I had to leave something for the new guy.”

by Amy Schoon

Maggie Van Oel: On a ‘perpetual’ vacation

Maggie Van Oel. Photo by Kirk Murray.

There were the engineering students who figured out how to access the defunct intercom system in Burge Hall and broadcast messages in the middle of the night. There was the student band that rolled a piano from the Daum basement into an elevator, added a guitar and bass player, and performed in transit. (Get it? Elevator music.) And there were the students who wanted to surprise their hall coordinator with a live turkey on Thanksgiving. Unable to find one, they settled for a live pig.

“I think the farmer they borrowed it from even gave it a bath first,” remembers Maggie Van Oel, the newly retired residence services director. “Eventually the pig got loose and was squealing and running up and down the hall.”

Funny memories for someone who intended to teach art.

Van Oel came to Iowa in August 1970 to get an MFA, but when she arrived, off-campus housing was scarce. The residence halls still had plenty of room, however, and so she wound up living on what she calls “an eclectic floor.”

Having been a resident assistant for three years at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she studied painting, printmaking, and photography, she volunteered on UI residence hall government and on a team of students who interviewed prospective resident assistants (RAs). The experience led Van Oel to a job as an assistant hall coordinator—and, ultimately, a 32-year career in the department.

For the past nine years, she served as acting director and then director. She officially retired in January and now spends her time traveling, gardening, and relaxing on the deck of her recently built house just outside Iowa City.

Even at home, Van Oel feels the influence of her years in residence services; she worked with an architect to make her house universally accessible, inspired in part by her experience with making residence halls accessible to students with disabilities.

“I missed work for about the first month. I felt just a titch left out, like life was going on without me. But now, it feels like perpetual summer vacation,” she says. “Overall, I miss working with the students—it was very rewarding.”

Elevator music, live pigs, and all.

by Linzee Kull McCray