OLLI AT UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
Multicultural Cafés
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OLLI at University of South Florida (USF) has enjoyed an ongoing educational partnership with the local Jewish Community Center (JCC) since 2006. The JCC Conn Campus in Citrus Park and the Bryan Glazer Center in south Tampa have hosted dozens of OLLI classes in a wide range of academic and artistic areas. The Culture Café classes offered this fall were developed by JCC educational director Pnina Levermore in concert with Nancy Dalence, educational director of the Tampa Bay History Center, and Joseph McAuliffe, educational programming manager of OLLI at USF.
In Tampa, there is a large and diverse mix of cultures, ages, and experiences. The JCC Federation has identified the history of the community as a foundational source of programming, so they wanted to include this market in partnership with both the Tampa Bay History Center and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The goal was to combine the social mixer with an experience that immerses guests in conversation about lifestyle, traditions, and heritage.
The concept was to kick up the lunch and learn a notch so when guests step into one of the Multicultural Cafés, there’s a mutual and desired sense of belonging, maybe even nostalgia where one can sample the tastes, sounds, art, and history of the ethnic cultures they quite possibly grew up with in the past, but also enjoy a modern twist with fun cocktails and refreshments that tied into the theme.
The first event in October featured Italy and was well attended with over 75 participants, but November’s event featuring Cuba brought together more than 90 people and was quite larger potentially because of the local Latin population of Tampa. December focused on the way ancient Greece practiced entertaining their guests.
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OLLI AT UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA and MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY
Virtual Brawl of the Wild
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Lifelong learners from across Montana joined to support their team in advance of the long standing "Brawl of the Wild" football game between Montana State University and University of Montana. Thanks to a brilliant idea of OLLI at University of Montana director Karen Hendrickson, MOLLI (OLLI at UofM) council chair, Kathy Bartlett and the efforts of her intrepid staff, OLLI at MSU and MOLLI members enjoyed a collaborative presentation by Montana native, historian, and storyteller, Hal Stearns on the history of this cross-state rivalry. “There are so many stories about ‘The Legends of the Fall’ and these legends are on both teams. These stories belong to us, as Montanans and that’s the magic” says Hal.
Both Institutes invited their loyal campus alumni, and the MSU campus also collaborated with and invited the MSU Retiree Association. Blue, gold, maroon, and silver were worn with pride!
The long-time rivalry did not stop the Montana OLLIs from celebrating together, as the Missoula speaker “Zoomed” into a meeting room at the MSU Alumni Foundation on the Bozeman campus. In addition to the entertaining presentation with pomp and circumstance, they collected canned food and cash donations for the "Can the Griz" and “Can the Cat” food drives. OLLI at MSU won the can drive with over 270 items donated; MOLLI won the cash donations with over $1,400 raised. But the true winners were those Montana families in need!
While the donation efforts were a strong tie for first place, the University of Montana Grizzlies won the game. The historic score in this rivalry is now 74 Grizzlies to 41 Bobcats, since 1897.
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OLLI AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
The Aging Landscape: Emerging Trends and Changing Perspectives
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According to the US Census, between 1950 and 2020 the number of adults aged 65 and older doubled, from eight to sixteen percent; by 2050 an estimated twenty percent of adults will be 65 and older. While advancements in medicine have significantly increased life expectancy, research indicates older adults who remain socially active live longer and feel more fulfilled. In 2018, UCLA joined the Age-Friendly University (AFU) global network to collaborate across academic disciplines, their many professional schools, and with staff, retirees, emeriti and alumni to support older adult equity. OLLI at UCLA played a vital role in this effort.
As part of this AFU collaboration, OLLI at UCLA participated with a panel of experts sharing emerging trends in aging research and practice across UCLA. They explored how culture and society shape views towards aging and examined changing perspectives in the aging landscape. Panelists included a wide range of experts from across UCLA: Ayesha Dixon, director, UCLA Emeriti/Retiree Relations Center; Dr. Paul Hsu, professor and director, UCLA Cluster Program - Aging; Monica Moore, community health manager; Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA; D’Ann Morris, associate director, UCLA Generation Xchange (GenX). Notably, it also included Dr. Anousheh Shayestehpour, director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UCLA.
An additional panelist, Fernando Torres-Gil (pictured above), director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging, was perhaps the most anticipated by the attendees. Torres-Gil is a professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy at UCLA, an adjunct professor of Gerontology at USC, and director of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging. He has written six books and over l00 publications, including The New Aging: Politics and Change in America (1992) and Lessons from Three Nations, Volumes I and II (2007). He is also the co-author of The Politics of a Majority-Minority Nation: Aging, Diversity, and Immigration. To promote this event, he was also interviewed by Adriane Berg on her podcast, Generation Bold Radio, on December 8. Please click here to listen to the interview.
Submitted by: Mary Ann Wilson, Program Coordinator, OLLI at UCLA
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2022 Osher Institutes National Conference |
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Keynote Speaker: Dr. Louise Aronson |
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We’re happy to announce that the Keynote Speaker for the 2022 Osher Institutes National Conference is Dr. Louise Aronson Integrative Geriatrician: UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Professor of Medicine: Division of Geriatrics, UCSF Department of Medicine, and Author.
Dr. Aronson is the author of the New York Times bestseller Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Her writing appears in publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Discover Magazine, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Her work has been featured on CBS This Morning, NPR’s Fresh Air, Politico, LitHub, Kaiser Health News, and Tech Nation.
For decades, “old” has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet, old age has been made into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied. This presentation will challenge not only the way we look at aging but also the way we think and feel about medicine and what it means to be a human being across the lifespan. New York Times bestseller Aronson, using stories from her quarter century of caring for patients and drawing from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life, will weave a vision of old age that’s full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and life itself.
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QUICK TIPS FOR HELPING OPERATE AN OSHER INSTITUTE
Quick Tip - Create Course Preview Videos
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Are you looking for ways to promote membership and class registrations? Have your instructors create short (between 30 second and two minute) introduction videos to their class(es). These can be quick videos to highlight and promote the interesting, unique, or educational aspects to be learned, but with an underlying idea of creating buzz around the class. Then, this video can be posted on social media, your site, or sent in your newsletter. Here is a great example from the OLLI at University of Utah.
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CAREER OPENINGS IN THE OLLI NETWORK
Job Board
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Assistant Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
OLLI Program Assistant
Program Manager for Learning Community
Personal Enrichment Programs Senior Director
Academic Program Assistant
Program Manager, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
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National Resource Center for Osher Institutes, Northwestern University
Wieboldt Hall, Sixth Floor, 339 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611
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