Class of '54...and '06
By: Robert K. Otterbourg, December 2006 Source: AARP Bulletin Date Posted: 2006-12-01 11:53:00-05:00
Maria Rosa Elliott knows what it's like to be the new face in town. She estimates that she's moved nearly 50 times, first as a European refugee, fleeing her native Spain with her family prior to World War II. She eventually relocated to the United States and back again overseas with her U.S. Air Force husband-turned-corporate-executive. Elliott finally settled in Durham, N.C., near one of her four children, following her husband's death in 1993.
Because of her peripatetic lifestyle, Elliott, 72, knew instinctively the best way to settle into the lifestyle of a community. Her method: Meet new people and take college-level courses. So she found her way to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), an adult educational program at Duke University.
OLLI, which started in 1962 at the New School in New York, has expanded to 93 colleges and universities across the country. Similar programs are also associated with the Elderhostel Institute Network (EIN), a nationwide umbrella group for 367 lifelong learning programs.
Duke's program, which began in 1977 with 42 students and now has 1,300, is taught by Duke professors as well as fellow OLLI students. The curriculum is separate from the university's undergraduate and graduate studies—students select from more than 85 noncredit courses, ranging from "Plato's Political Philosophy" to "Poetry for People Who Dislike Poetry."
"I've met most of my Durham friends in class," says Elliott, who leads La Table Francaise, a group of a dozen French-speaking OLLI members. "We have lunch together every Tuesday, and sit around a table and chat in French about current events or whatever comes to mind."
For many like Elliott, a lifelong learning program is a bridge to new friends and a thriving social life. That's particularly true at Duke, where about 60 percent of its OLLI members are newcomers to the community, having moved to the Durham-Chapel Hill area since 2000.
While each lifelong learning institution sets its own classroom fees, the costs are affordable when compared to undergraduate tuitions. At Duke, it costs $80 to attend one OLLI course and $180 for five courses a semester. The $30 annual OLLI membership fee gives free access to non-academic activities such as the fiction-reading book club, craft and photography groups, folk dancing and choral singing. For an additional cost, students can participate in such activities as weekend mountain retreats.
A 2005 survey of Duke's OLLI members found that up to 15 percent of members do not take classes in a given term, but continue to stay connected to the program by participating in the various social activities.
Sara Craven, Duke's OLLI program director since 1987, says the popularity of social gatherings "is evidenced by the addition of five new activities since 2004."
The out-of-classroom activities help attract new—and retain old—members among the transplants who flock to the Durham-Chapel Hill area. In Chapel Hill alone, the 60-plus crowd is considered the fastest-growing segment, according to the Chapel Hill-Carboro Chamber of Commerce. They're drawn to the region's many amenities, including two top-notch schools—Duke and the University of North Carolina—their esteemed teaching hospitals, a temperate climate and the cities' close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and Blue Ridge Mountains.
Such amenities were attractive to David and Mary Ann Marples, who retired to Durham from Charleston, W.Va., in 1990. Through OLLI's Research Triangle Science Book Club, the former Union Carbide scientist and clinical social worker met many of their current friends and now have the opportunity to discuss science and related issues with folks sharing their interest.
While science brought the Marples together with like-minded people, a love of philosophy and opera was the link for Carol Phillips Oettinger and Malcolm Oettinger, who met in classes on philosopher Martin Buber and "Seeking the Inner You."
"When I first met Mal, he brought his wife Louise [then ill with Alzheimer's] to class," says Carol, a registered nurse. Carol found that Malcolm was kind and gentle to Louise, a factor that brought them together after Louise died in 1998. They also discovered that they had some common interests, and eventually married in 1999.
For former high-tech company manager Anthony Waraksa and his wife, retired psychologist Harriet Sander, OLLI has been a hot spot for meeting interesting people from all over the world.
"Where else could one meet a former Miss Georgia, several participants in the 1960s racial sit-ins in the Carolinas, and the personnel officer in the group that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan?" Waraksa asks.
Robert K. Otterbourg of Durham, N.C., is the author of Retire & Thrive.
Campus Retirement Communities (December 2006)
Back to College (AARP The Magazine)
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