Please stay tuned for news regarding future ARRUF events.
Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 8:00am
GUIDED EXPLORATION: LOCAL PLANTS, ANIMALS, AND BIRDS of Rice University’s Harris Gully.
CIN-TY LEE, Professor and Chairman, Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, has championed awareness of the Rice University campus as a special environment with distinctive ecosystems, habitats for migrating birds, and wildlife. His efforts have especially focused on the Harris Gully, which has been left in a “natural” state for the benefit of human, avian, and mammalian residents. Thanks to Cin-Ty Lee and his colleagues, greater efforts and policy changes are ensuring the Gully will remain a respite on long migration routes and a center for remaining wildlife. ARRUF visited the Gully and saw for themselves in the cool autumn. Members met at the recently-built shelter in Harris Gully.
Monday, November 13, 2023 11:00 a.m.
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412, followed by lunch
LONGEVITY BRIEFING: Vaccinations: History, Efficacy, Risks, and Controversies
During the second half of the 20th Century, vaccines for smallpox, polio, pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumonia, influenza, chickenpox, and shingles were heralded as dramatic scientific breakthroughs that would eradicate most infectious childhood diseases and prolong the life of the elderly. Vaccine technology seemed to be keeping pace with both older and emerging pathogens, including HIV, Ebola, RSV, papilloma virus (major causative agent of cervical cancer), and even Covid19. Most medical check-ups for people over 65 involve vaccination histories and suggestions for booster or new shots.
However, at the beginning of the 21st century, an anti-vaccine movement arose, based in part on a study of 12 children, who were diagnosed with autism, either just before or right after they received their first mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. These anti-vaccine groups have grown over the past 20 years and become politically influential in recommending against vaccines and opposing mandatory requirements.
John Olson (Professor Emeritus in BioSciences) interviewed Dr. Novotny to explore these two opposing views, focusing on the biology of vaccines, their history, and reported medical outcomes.
Alma Novotny retired as a Rice University faculty member in May 2023 after 23 years in the BioSciences Department. She also taught biology courses for adults in Rice's Masters of Liberal Arts programs, offering "Plagues and Populations" and "DNA: Human Origins and Identity." Her Coursera [on-line] four-course "Fundamentals of Immunology" series currently enrolls approximately 70,000 registered students. At Rice, Dr. Novotny received three George R. Brown Awards for Superior Teaching and a Graduate Liberal Studies (GLS) John Freeman Faculty Mentoring Award. She was also nominated for a National Piper Teaching Award, based on student letters from UH Clear Lake where she taught before coming to Rice.
Dr. Novotny's signature course at Rice was Immunology 372, which she taught for 20 years. Over time, she experimented with different formats, eventually "flipping" the course to provide on-line instruction (continued next page) coupled with reinforcement and individualized responses during class time. She has also delivered public and Rice-community talks on childhood vaccinations and general principles of immunity. Alma Novotny proudly identifies as a Polio Pioneer, having served as a control during the 1954 Salk vaccine trials and promptly getting immunized the following year."
Monday, October 23, 2023, 11:00am
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412
Book Discussion: Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs about Aging Determine How Long and How Well You Live by Becca Levy (2022)
Book discussions are a series to take place every other week, beginning in October. The books and materials to be discussed are a serious effort to understand the population shifts ahead, the cultural differences that exist, and the opportunities to reframe Houston’s situation in preparation for the spring special event, which will bring together experts and Houston leaders. “The Rise of the Gray and the Brown,” some have called it, but Houston is a special case; our older population is growing fast, but so are our ethnic subgroups, which will soon be of comparable size and increasing influence. How can Houston make the shifts POSITIVE FOR ALL? This reading group will discuss issues related to this spring’s principal conference.
Tuesday, December 12, 2023, 11:00am
Hybrid: Zoom or Fondren 412
A Reading of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory
ARRUF gathered for a reading of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory featuring light holiday refreshments and holiday lunch at the Faculty Club. ARRUF has enjoyed a shared read-aloud (one page per person) session devoted to A Christmas Memory each year since our founding. We are especially fond of this event in part because ARRUF member and founding dean of the Shepherd School of Music, Sam Jones, composed an opera, with Truman Capote’s blessing, based on the work. We hope that it will be performed in Houston soon.
Members gathered in person in ARRUF’s room, Fondren 412, and on the screen to connect with members near and far via Zoom.
Monday, December 4, 2023
THE ART OF FESTIVITY
At ARRUF we treasure the season’s most basic and cherished gift of all, friendship. On Monday, December 4, ARRUF celebrated THE ART OF FESTIVITY at Karin Broker’s award-winning studio. Karin’s own stunning art, her collections, and inimitable decorations were also on view.
Fall 2023
ARRUF Continues to Explore LONGEVITY MAGNET HOUSTON
ARRUF's Fall 2023 offered frequent, intellectually rich meetings and trips along with lunches and discussions with friends! For example, the three figures in the attached photo, seen in ARRUF's 2022 visit to the MFAH exhibition, "Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of Indigenous Colombia," convey how human experiences of joy, contemplation, and humor persist across the centuries.
In Fall 2023, ARRUF continued to explore Houston as a longevity magnet. Like the US as a whole, Houston has a fast-growing 65+ population. ARRUF seeks a role in encouraging Houston’s communities to become a national model of collaboration, mutual appreciation, and success. ARRUF’s interest groups—in travel, nature, and arts—also show how individuals can pursue their passions in retirements and share them with others. ARRUF activities continue to explore Houston’s fascinating cultural sites, longevity challenges, and beckoning pleasures.
May 2023
Japanese Garden Tour and Tea Ceremony
The final trip, arranged by the Houston Parks Department, took members to the Japanese Garden in Hermann Park. Led by a horticulturist, the tranquil walk was enhanced with a tea ceremony demonstration by the Japan America Society of Houston. Both the garden tour and ceremony emphasized the philosophical principles of intentional looking, experiencing, and appreciating transient beauty.
April 2023
Reception for New Members
Rice University’s president, provost, and associate provost addressed ARRUF’s new members and welcomed them to their new university status. Neal Lane gave a "Fireside Chat" about his time at Rice, his retirement, and remaining a "civic scientist." The Welcome Center was the site for the introduction of new retirees and the lively reception that followed.
ARRUF members are finding several ways that participation enhances this new relationship to the university. Having the opportunity to get to know well outstanding scholars and researchers who were outside of one’s department or school enriches life with new friendships. Conversations over lunch, discussions, and joint projects can do even more: they stimulate multidisciplinary thinking, seeing a topic or event from a somewhat different viewpoint, perhaps historical, statistical, industrial, or cultural.
In those more complex perspectives, new solutions and possibilities emerge. As Jim Blackburn and Isabelle Chapman had urged in their summer presentation on “A Texan Plan for the Texas Coast,” it is possible to link free market mechanisms, profits, sustainability, bird habitats, and aesthetic harmony. Can we be equally creative with cultures and aging?
