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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Members of the Silver Knights, an
organization solely for Rutgers staff
retirees, lend their loyal support to
the Scarlet Knights at this year’s
Homecoming. The group – 450 members
strong and growing – keeps Rutgers in
the forefront for retired staff and
assists the university. From left to
right, Silver Knights members Bill
Callahan, Dorothy Gwozdziewicz, Edward
Byrne and Joan DeBoer.
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Credit: Nick Romanenko
Stadium fans at Rutgers' 2005 Homecoming
Oct. 29 cheer the Scarlet Knights
following the team's 31-21 victory over
the Navy Midshipmen. It is the first
time since 1992 that the Knights are
bowl eligible. The sell-out crowd of
41,716 was the second-largest in school
history.
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They return to campus for lunch twice a year. You can see them marching in the reunion parade with banner unfurled, sitting in the football stands as a group or manning a tent at Homecoming.
No, they’re not a group of alumni, although many are Rutgers graduates. They’re the Silver Knights – more than 450 retired staff members – whose dedication, loyalty and support of the university rivals that of most any alumni class.
Active at Rutgers since its founding in 1994, the Silver Knights help retirees continue their affiliation with Rutgers by providing information, activities and events. Member volunteers serve as fund-raisers, mentors, lobbyists and university ambassadors.
“We’ve become a very important group for the university because we are keeping Rutgers in the forefront for our retirees and also providing support for the university in a variety of ways,” said Joan DeBoer, former assistant dean for student services at Cook College and one of the founders of the group.
DeBoer first got the idea for the group back in 1987. She felt that Rutgers staff members, like the faculty, should have an organization they could join after they retired. After all, she said, her husband Roy, a Cook College professor in landscape architecture, would have such an organization when he retired.
“I took the idea to the Administrative Assembly where it received a sympathetic ear from president Norma Sawyer,” she recalls, noting that Sawyer, a former assistant registrar, coined the name. After several false starts and weathering Rutgers budget crunches, the group received startup funds from the university and got on its way in 1994, a year after Joan DeBoer retired. She now serves as the chair of the election and membership committees.
Paul Vitek, who succeeded Gene Young, president of the group for 10 years until his death in 2004, recalls being in the early group that tried to organize a staff retiree unit.
“We really wanted to be in a position to offer something to retirees, such as benefits information, the use of university swimming pools and free parking passes. We were also eager to help the university in any ways that we could,” said Vitek, who publishes the group’s newsletter.
Today staff retirees number 2,300, many of whom were mobilized to send letters to Trenton to help ease the recent budget crunch. Among the retiree pool, the organization has a membership of some 450 dues-paying members – most are from New Jersey – and usually draws half of them to its spring and fall luncheons where they hear presentations from Rutgers faculty and administrators or state officials.
Among the measures the organization has had a hand in instituting for retirees are long-term care insurance, a dental plan, prescription cards and flu shots, said Vitek, former assistant athletic director for academic support services.
Another of the original group, Vice President Ed Byrne, retired bursar, remembers the ease with which the organization melded together. “When we worked at Rutgers, we were a very close group who worked well together; then we found others who wanted to continue meeting.”
Byrne recalled frequent trips by the group to such places as the Hunterdon Hills Playhouse, Atlantic City, the Culinary Institute of America in New York, the Roosevelt Home in Hyde Park and the aircraft carrier Intrepid in New York City.
One of the newest members is Bill Callahan, who joined the group shortly after he retired in 2002. “To me benefits are sacred cows,” said Callahan, explaining his interest in the Silver Knights. “We need an active organization to monitor them, because other forces can change them if we are not alert.”
Callahan, longtime dean for student services at University College, brought some novel ideas to the organization, particularly the Silver Knights’ tent at the Homecoming football game for the past two years.
“Many people don’t know about the Silver Knights and find out about us only when they retire,” he said. “I thought that one way to raise our visibility is to get involved with athletics.” At the game, retirees can sit in a block of seats and the organization is welcomed over the loudspeaker. Callahan was also helpful in setting up the Silver Knights Web page, silverknights.rutgers.edu with help from the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies.
Callahan pointed out that the Knights also have begun appearing at Rutgers reunion weekends marching in the alumni parade – carrying their banner – and sitting as a group at their own table at reunion luncheons.
“This is a great organization and I want to see it expand,” said Callahan, who suggests that the Rutgers Silver Knights may be unique. “I haven’t heard of any staff retiree organizations at other colleges.”
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