An emeritus professor is a title given to selected retired professors with whom a university wants to continue their association, due to their accomplishments, research, or stature. At FIU, emeritus status can be conferred upon a employee who retires after a minimum of five years of employment and who has a record of contributing to the school and the profession through outstanding teaching, research or service.
Two noted FIU emeritus professors, Irma Alonso and Meri-Jane Rochelson, were involved in the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (CWGS).
Irma Alonso, Professor Emerita, Economics, retired from FIU in 2008. She has been a faculty affiliate of the CWGS since its inception, and created courses that combined economics and gender studies, such as “Women, Culture, and Economic Development” (which is recognized as satisfying core curriculum and global learning graduation requirements) and “Women, Men, and Work in the USA.”
Her classes have gained Quality Matters status (Quality Matters is a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses) and have been recognized with the FIU Affordability Medallion, which recognizes those classes with course materials that cost $60 or less, in new condition. These courses are so unique she began teaching them fully online after retirement, and they are in high demand each semester.
Meri-Jane Rochelson, Professora Emerita, English, was active in CWGS from the time she came to FIU in 1984 and served as Interim Director in 1999-2000, chairing the national search that brought FIU Suzanna Rose. Rose was director of the CWGS from 2000 to 2007 and is currently the founding associate provost for the Office to Advance Women, Equity & Diversity.
In November 2017, she published a Broadview Edition of Israel Zangwill’s 1908 play The Melting-Pot, with introduction, notes, and contextualizing documents. It’s already been used in university classrooms. In August 2018, she published Eli’s Story: A Twentieth-Century Life, a biography of her father, Eli G. Rochelson, MD (1907-1984), who survived the Holocaust, and whose entire life reveals important insights into the East European and American Jewish experience in the last century.
The FIU English Department, the Holocaust Studies Initiative, and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies will be presenting a book launch of Eli’s Story: A Twentieth-Century Jewish Life at Books and Books on October 7, 2018 from 6:00-8:00pm.
