John Bligh
- Retired teacher
Retired educator Joyce Magnus, who helped thousands of teachers get their certification and worked tirelessly as a retiree to advance the UFT’s political agenda, died on Oct. 8, 2022, of heart failure. She was 80.
Up to her death, Joyce had been organizing UFT retiree volunteers to join phone banks and help get out the vote for Democratic U.S. Senate and gubernatorial candidates in Pennsylvania.
“The political activism that she has done is unparalleled,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Delegate Assembly on Oct. 12. Mulgrew said that, as a retiree, Joyce pushed hard for the UFT to use its political voice at all times.
Retired Teachers Chapter Leader Tom Murphy said Joyce “personified what Michael Mulgrew calls the retiree Daytime Army.”
“Joyce was an ever-present force to be reckoned with as a 60-year UFT activist stalwart,” Murphy said. “Since I became the RTC chapter leader in 2009, she has been at my side in every member engagement activity undertaken.”
At Teacher Union Day on Nov. 6, 2022, as previously planned, Joyce will receive this year’s Marsh/Raimo Award for political action.
Joyce’s faith in the power of unions goes back to her parents, who fled Vienna in Nazi Austria and arrived in the United States in 1938, she said in a video filmed when she received a New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) Retiree of the Year award in 2019. As soon as they could join a union, they did.
“Unionism has been with me forever,” she explained. “It’s not something you turn off like a faucet. It just continues. Even though you retire, it just continues.”
Albert Shanker, Sandy Feldman, Randi Weingarten and Mulgrew were all role models for Joyce. “I loved every bus ride, door knock, street walk that I ever did, and I was just happy to be an activist with the UFT,” she said in the video.
Joyce began teaching in 1962. She was an elementary school teacher who was active as a chapter leader and in other advocacy roles. Later in her career, she assisted educators first as an educational liaison at the UFT Teacher Center and then as a certification specialist.
Joyce was a key member of the Retired Teachers Chapter, serving as an executive board member and treasurer, the political action representative for Retiree Council 17 and the Staten Island retiree political action representative. She was a convention delegate to NYSUT and the American Federation of Teachers.
Fellow unionists described her as committed, dedicated, loyal and hard-working. She loved helping other people and, in her retirement years, excelled at convincing fellow retirees to join her in political action.
John Soldini, an RTC executive board member and longtime friend, said Joyce was a “dynamo.” They first met in the late 1960s, when he was teaching on Staten Island and she was teaching in lower Manhattan. Later, they were part of a group that dined out together and traveled to different parts of Europe on various cruises. He was a member of her retiree political “posse.”
“She was persistent but it was always for a good cause,” he said. “She would find a nice way, even if you weren’t up to it, to get you to do something.”
Donna Coppola, Staten Island political action coordinator for in-service members, said Joyce was always able to get more volunteers than she was. “She had a following,” Coppola said. “When Joyce spoke, everyone listened. You would go above and beyond for Joyce.”
The union was very important to Joyce, Coppola said. “She would do anything for the union, and she expected that from everyone else.”
Retiree Ann Rosen, who built the UFT’s certification and licensing support system several decades ago, said Joyce did a wonderful job helping teachers maintain their credentials after a change in state law required them to get state certification in addition to a city license.
“One of the things that Joyce did was visit schools and really help people through this step by step,” Rosen said.
Coppola and UFT Treasurer Debra Penny, the union’s liaison to retirees, said Joyce had friends everywhere she went and had a gift for connecting with people.
Penny said Joyce never forgot anything, kept track of people in her life and always celebrated their accomplishments, Penny said. “Even the day she passed away, she came to my office because she found out my father had passed away,” Penny said.
Retired teacher Barbara Waldmann said Joyce had “class and spirit” and was a “quintessential unionist.”
“We at the UFT have lost such an integral part of our family,” she said. “It was such a blessing that she has walked among us and is leaving behind such a lasting legacy for us all to emulate.”
Joyce is survived by her longtime partner, Ken Halpern; stepdaughter Jackie Hodes and her wife, Mary-Alice Ozechoski; and stepdaughters Margot Deutsch (Jeff) and Jennifer Myers (Steve) and their six children. She was predeceased by her husband, Robert Hodes. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to the ALS Association, Greater New York Chapter, alsa-newjersey.com.
It’s been almost a year since Joyce passed away.
I remember my first encounter with her. It was a Saturday evening phone call, asking if I was interested in continuing as a retiree delegate to the union Delegate Assembly. Joyce said that she would nominate me if I was interested—of course I said yes right away! I had been a chapter leader and delegate in my school, and I wanted to continue in the delegate capacity.
We would connect during conventions and during the every three years petition signing to be nominated as convention delegates.
I will always be proud to have been one of “Joyce’s people”.
Thank You
So admired Joyce Magnus!
Love the photo…
And admired Joyce….. The BEST!