Paul Nathanson, director of the UNM School of Law's Institute of Public Law, was elected in December as chairman of the board of directors for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
"The issue is important," Nathanson said. "It's a way to have an impact."
His duties as chairman focus on setting a national agenda for the committee. Nathanson wants the organization to focus on helping people of color and educating young people about social security. The other important issue to Nathanson is the proposed privatization of social security.
"The advocates mostly argue about dollars and cents questions," Nathanson said. "I would like to see us, in addition, talking about the moral high ground that social security represents."
Nathanson sees social security as a community program rather than an individually geared one, which is why he is against privatization.
"Social security is about a national sense of community as opposed to what's in it for me," Nathanson said. "I really think it's the only national program that says we're a community."
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Nathanson joined the board of directors in 1998 and was elected vice chairman in 2001. He has been at UNM since 1980 as a faculty member in the Elderly Law program. He was named director of the School of Law's Institute of Public Law in 1983. Also, he was head of UNM's community relations through the Office of the President from 1993 to 1995.
Nathanson was then executive director of the National Senior Citizens Law Center from 1972 to 1980 and a former president of the American Society on Aging.
He graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1967, earning a juris doctorate with distinction. In 1969, he graduated with a master's of comparative law from the University of Chicago Law School.
According the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare's Web site, the organization was formed in 1982 to be an advocate for the landmark federal programs of social security and Medicare and for all Americans who seek a healthy, productive and secure retirement."
The committee is dedicated to preserving social security and keeping it from being privatized.
"The committee is about trying to keep it the way it's been," Nathanson said.
Nathanson teaches several classes at the UNM Law School that relate to the issue of social security. Those classes include political science, legal problems of the elderly and legislative advocacy.
As head of Community Relations, Nathanson "tried to have UNM be more responsive."
He said he feels UNM should have expanded programs to provide pre-retirement counseling for their employees. He would love for the UNM community to have a dialogue surrounding the issue of social security and he would be willing to provide experts on the topic.
"Social security is one of the major public policy problems today," Nathanson said. "I'd like very much that the UNM community have a discussion."
