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On March 17, the University of Michigan changed its longstanding retirement plan to allow for easier access to cash withdrawals, a significant change permitting former employees access to retirement funds at any age to accommodate extenuating circumstances such as financial hardship or other emergencies.
In 2023, Holly Rider, former director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, was diagnosed with metastatic terminal breast cancer at 50 years old and wanted access to her retirement funds to improve her quality of life. The University matches employees’ 403(b), a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan for public school employees, 5% income contributions with a 10% contribution into the 401(a). Prior to this change, however, a former employee had to be 55 or older to withdraw from their retirement funds, even if experiencing an emergency.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rider said while actively receiving chemotherapy at the U-M Rogel Cancer Center, she chose to fight for this policy change for herself and others in a similar position.
“I couldn’t help but think about how many other people this probably has impacted in the past who maybe didn’t have the ability or the knowledge or the time or the resources to be able to take this issue up with the institution,” Rider said. “So I decided that I really wanted to try to change this policy to make it more humane.”
According to Rider, after a year of advocacy and review, the University made changes for current employees but not for former employees like her. As a result, Rider kept pushing for more progress.
“Some change was made, not enough to benefit me and lots of people like me, and so I just dug in again and decided who else (would), if not me,” Rider said. “This is an important issue. I think that there can be changes, and I think that there should be, and I’m gonna fight for it.”
Rider reached out to a mentor from the University, Kathleen Donohoe, former associate director of human resources policy.
Donohoe connected Rider with her daughter, Erin Gallagher, who was in touch with Regent Jordan Acker. In an interview with The Daily, Gallagher, a U-M alum, explained her connections with those within the University helped the policy change come to fruition.
Rider and her colleagues’ efforts were successful, ultimately persuading the University to change the retirement policy to additionally allow former employees access to retirement funds at any age.
Rider also said it’s important to acknowledge the University’s commitment to working with its community, saying the change is meaningful because it demonstrates a larger capacity for the University to address community needs and concerns.
“This was the first time I really had the need to advocate for myself and it was amazing to have allies come to my support, but it was also amazing to see the University respond,” Rider said. “I do think the institution and the leaders deserve credit for hearing a person’s story, seeing how it connects to a much broader issue and being willing to make change.”
Donohoe agreed with Rider, saying she feels the University is willing to make positive policy regardless of what other universities may be doing.
“Some universities do allow it, some don’t,” Donohoe said. “But one of the interesting things about (the University) is we often want to be a leader when we’re looking at doing the right thing, and we don’t let what other universities are doing hold us back from making a change if it’s the right thing to do for our people. I was always proud of that when I did the work.”
In an email to The Daily, LSA senior Mark Tallents, president of ResStaff Allied Organization, an organization that represents student employees on campus, wrote a statement on behalf of the organization highlighting the importance of unionization for faculty and staff when negotiating with the University.
“Changes from University executive leadership to employee retirement policies are only more indication that every worker at the University, from faculty to students, needs a union,” RAO wrote. “Collective bargaining is the only way workers can operationalize the values of shared governance at this University.”
Going forward, Gallagher suggested the community needs to be more involved in decision-making that directly impacts them in ways that might be unintended.
“You have to have people at the table that are impacted by the policies that you make,” Gallagher said. “You need to hear how it actually shows up for them in their real life. When you’re trying to protect your bottom line, and you’re trying to make sure that you’re budgeting and saving money, what happens on paper looks very different from what happens in people’s homes and their families and their communities.”
Daily Staff Reporter Delilah Dakis can be reached at delilahd@umich.edu.
