Under the leadership of avian science professor emerita Ursula Abbott, the campus has expanded emeriti university employment titles so that it's easier to obtain grants. The average number of visits to the campus from this group is 2.29 per week. Orville Thompson has been one of those emeriti boosting the average visits to campus with his habit of coming to work almost every day since he retired in 1988 from the Department of Human and Community Development. Now he is president of the Davis Emeriti Association for a two-year term. The emeriti activity survey, in fact, was conducted under past association president John Whitaker's and Thompson's watches.
Nobody asks emeriti what they are doing in their departments.
This gives us an opportunity for recognition. In addition, Thompson said the survey was conducted so that the wider campus community could appreciate the value added to the university by the many retired members of the professoriate. Retired in 1981 in an era when UC had a mandatory retirement age, Feeney continued to teach until the late '80s as well as conduct research on his specialty, the antifreeze protein. The protein biochemist traveled with Norwegian and Russian fishing ships for five weeks at a time for eight years until 1987. I didn't play golf.