Transitions Special Section
Retirees ready, but say leaving jobs they love is ‘bittersweet’
By Joe Stumpe Travel. Grandchildren. Age. Love. These are some of the reasons people give up jobs that have seemed more like callings. But even those compelling reasons don’t make the actual decision to retire easy. The Active Age spoke to five people who recently decided to step away from highly fulfilling careers. All were thankful for the opportunities they’d had to make a difference, comfortable with their next chapters in life and yet a bit wistful. Dona Gibson “Deciding to retire was a decision I had dreaded for years,” said Dona Gibson, who retired from Friends University in December after 40 years with the school. “Fortunately, my wise husband had retired seven years before I did and told me, ‘You’ll
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Photo by Cary Conover
Patricia McDonnell, center, retires as director of the Wichita Art Museum this month after 45 years in the art field. from 1991 until her retirement, helped know when it’s time.’ The pandemic create the university’s international actually gave me a practice time to travel and study program and herself begin to slow down and focus on life as a whole rather than life as a career. presented at teaching education But the shorter answer to the question conferences in Kenya and China. The travel program has given more than is rather simple: 40 years sounded like 500 students experience abroad. a good length of time to have made a contribution.” Teaching teachers, Gibson said, was a way of impacting young minds In addition to teaching in the far beyond the walls of her classroom. Division of Education, Gibson “My teaching life for many years directed the master’s teaching program
has been totally devoted to working with graduate students who are already classroom teachers. The experience of accompanying and encouraging them on their journey has given me such an awe and admiration for the huge impact of P-12 teachers on their students’ experience. I hope and believe I’ve had some part to play in their lives.” Gibson’s connection with Friends actually goes back considerably farther than four decades. As an 8-year-old, she attended a symphony concert in Friends’ Alumni Auditorium and told her mother: “I want to live here.” She said colleagues such as Cecil Riney, Moses Rumano and Friends President Amy Carey had a profound effect on her life. Gibson will keep a connection to Friends as a professor emeritus but also is ready for a different focus. “Like every other retiree, definitely traveling more is one plan,” she said. “My volunteer life has picked up dramatically as well, which I highly recommend even to folks still working!” Pat Gallagher Pat Gallagher might have thought See next page