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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">My official retirement from Saint Louis University was June 30, 2019. This will surprise some of you as you know I planned to retire at age 67 in June 2020. Here is the explanation.</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Saint Louis University is experiencing its third financial crisis in a decade and remains in the red for at least 20 million. Like the last crisis, the administration hoped to ease
the burden by offering a special buyout (known as a VERP) to older faculty. The VERP included a full year's salary, $25,000 for medical expenses and a bonus pay-out for every year the professor has been at SLU. There's even a clause for expedited Professor
Emeritus status. With only one more year to go this seemed to be the better option. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Following a negotiation with my Biology chairperson and the current Dean of Arts & Sciences I keep my office, this computer, email address, my lab, landline phone and my last PhD student for
another 14 months. This includes remaining in charge of the John Dwyer Public Lecture in Biology until May 2020. Time is needed to finish the Australian midge orchid project, write up another two or three scientific papers for submission and take my last
PhD student, Alan Moss, through his thesis defense scheduled for July-August 2020. If there are no emergencies this could be like a year's sabbatical with all expenses paid. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Please continue to contact us via our e-mail and snail-mail addresses or our telephone numbers. The current plan is for Linda and me to sell-up, pack up and move to her house in Bundoora,
Victoria (a suburb of Melbourne) by the end of 2020 or early 2021. Retirement in Australia should be active with Research Associateships in the Hoebee lab at LaTrobe U. and the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. This includes an adjunct professorship at Curtin University
in Perth, Western Australia and probably more programs for "The Science Show" on Radio Australia. Perhaps there will be a return to Yunnan as the Himalayan summer is the Australian winter. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Believe it or not, official retirement occurred just a couple of days before my 100th, peer-reviewed paper (coauthored with Drs. G. Camilo and Peter Weston) was accepted by the Journal
of the Singapore Botanic Garden. It's part of a Festschrift honoring the career of David Mabberley. </span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Sincerely,</span></p>
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<span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont; color:black">Peter</span></p>
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