Hiram J. Friedsam, professor emeritus in the Department of Applied Gerontology at the University of North Texas, was a co-founder and director of the Center for Studies in Aging at UNT.  The Center was the first gerontology program in the state, and one of the first in the nation.  He was also a co-founder of the American Association of Homes for the Aging and past-president of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education, as well as regional gerontological and social science organizations.  He served as editor of The Gerontologist in the early 1980s, and more-recently as associate editor of Sustainable Communities Review.  He has been retired for nearly a quarter-century; but continues to come ‘to the office’ at UNT and to serve as advisor to the Retirement Housing Professional program in the Department of Applied Gerontology.  Dr. Friedsam replied in writing to questions I had given him, followed by discussion in the offices of the Department of Applied Gerontology.

Many of us in gerontology teach and study retirement.  You have now long experienced it.  What has been as you expected, and what has surprised you?

From my perspective, retirement is simply formal separation from a job.  After that, “living in retirement” is multi-dimensional, and the dimensions are roughly the same as those for living at younger ages:  health, finances, housing, location, and so on.  The relative importance of dimensions may change, but there are few new ones.  One, perhaps, is one’s relationship to the profession and to past colleagues.  I’m sure you know, as I do, retirees who have cut their professional ties totally and completely.  On the other hand, I know retirees, even gerontologists, who have continued to volunteer at their institutions, and to continue attendance at meetings of professional organizations for years.  As an aside, I’ve been surprised by how little professional organizations are interested in their retired members or make an effort to rekindle the interest of those who have cut themselves off.  Several years ago, I encouraged AGHE to look at this, and some research was done by Harvey Stems at the University of Akron.  I think it’s worth more attention.

Academics, and those in the military, have long been able to experience a ‘retirement’ that is only a step to new activity.  You as an emeritus professor have been able to have one type of such experience.  But increasing parts of the population are now experiencing ‘retirement‘ as but one more step in a career, or to a new career.  Do you have any comments on such ‘new retirement’?

The last part of my reply to your first question approaches this.  I certainly have no reservation about ‘retirees’ seeking second careers; and in the early days of our program at the University of North Texas, we had a number of ‘retired’ people coming into it who were seeking to enter aging services as a second career – that includes several retired military persons by the way.  I suspect that our experience was not all that different from some of the other early gerontology programs, but I don’t know of anyone who has looked at the question.

How does the field of gerontology itself appear to one who has long been ‘retired’ from it?

Having long believed that research follows funding, and given the feds’ tremendous emphasis on health, gerontology now comes close to being a health discipline.  I recently examined several issues of The Gerontologist, which I once edited, and found that a very large proportion of the articles were health-related.  In fact, in one issue, all of the articles were health-related.

What should current gerontologists keep in mind, or what are they missing, from the perspective of both the subject and object of what gerontologists study?

There have been a couple of suggestions in my previous answers that are related to this, but one thing to keep in mind is that ‘retirement’ can last a very long time.  I have been retired for more than 20 years, and in that period I have moved, to use Bernice Newgarten’s felicitous terms, from the land of the “young old,” where most of us dwell at retirement, into the land of the “old old.”  I said at the outset that the relative importance of the dimensions of retirement may vary in importance; but this change almost certainly produces the greatest variation on those dimensions.

What would you advise gerontologists who are approaching retirement, preparing for it, or simply planning ahead for it?

Nothing that I would not advise anyone retiring from any other profession, except that you have a running start over most of them in your knowledge of the field.

What further do you wish to say to today’s gerontologists?

I have participated in two or three programs in recent years to argue, like a handful of others, that gerontology (or gerontologists) shows little concern about “sustainability.”  As public health people, and at least a few politicians, tell us, we live in a society that is virtually designed to create chronic illness, and it’s getting worse.  You can’t look at the future of aging without looking at the future of the society in which it will take place; and that future could be very bleak.  I’ve looked for articles in gerontology journals that address “sustainability”; but I have found very few.  I think it should become a central issue.

Does public health have a role in that?

Definitely! And not just a role, but a major leadership role. The essence of sustainability is, to use a well-worn phrase, that it is a compact between generations.  We will leave the world at least as good as we found it, and hopefully better. I suspect that fits the underlying, if not the expressed function, of public health quite well.

Note:

 1  Professor, Department of Applied Gerontology, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas.

James H. Swan, PhD