![]() ![]() “We hope they will not only join OLLI and take classes but decide to actively support it as volunteers and instructors.” “Duke alums are a well-educated audience that long ago embraced the concept of lifelong learning,” she says. OLLI President Marion Jervay, a Duke Law graduate who worked at the Duke Clinical Research Institute before retiring, said she hopes the growing ties with Duke alumni will make OLLI less of a “well-kept secret” within the Duke community. “In my undergraduate classes, I might mention Nat King Cole, or Johnny Mathis or Grace Kelly, and they’d say ‘King who?’” laughs Gerald Wilson, who says the OLLI class also put him back in touch with Duke students who took his classes years ago. We were there in our living room talking about Lincoln but not getting that response.” However, the students were “very smart” and brought extensive life experience to the discussions. “On Zoom, you don’t see people’s faces the same way. “Gerald and I are used to teaching face to face,” she says. She and her husband, Duke senior associate dean Gerald Wilson, jointly taught one of OLLI’s first online courses, on Abraham Lincoln. It was a wonderful opportunity.”ĭuke alumna Ginger Wilson is currently taking three online OLLI courses and calls them a “lifesaver” during the pandemic. Online learning can benefit older adults even without a pandemic, adds Jo Supernaw, the association’s director of academic engagement, who calls accessibility “a huge priority.” Supernaw took one of the online OLLI classes herself, on the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and “got to meet people I would never have engaged with. We have folks with pretty broad sets of interests and OLLI is a way for us to support them.” “Their identity changes over the course of a lifetime. “We can’t keep viewing alums the way they were when they were students,” says Jenn Chambers, assistant vice president for lifelong learning at the alumni association. OLLI's outreach effort supports one of President Vincent Price's strategic goals to engage a global network of alumni and friends, and expand continuing education opportunities for alumni. “Now I feel like I’m more connected and I belong.” “I was semi-disconnected” after graduating decades ago, she says. Now I feel like I’m more connected and I belong.”Īmong the new alumni members is Penny Cobau-Smith, an education specialist in northern Ohio who “wanted to make 2021 the year I would expand my horizons.” She enrolled as a student - “there are no grades and I like the breadth and depth” - and volunteered to serve as a class moderator and assist the curriculum committee.Īlong the way, Cobau-Smith changed how she thinks about Duke. That's more than a third of the current total, which is much lower than before the pandemic but is expected to recover when in-person classes resume. An additional 145 alumni signed up, bringing to 336 the number of Duke alumni who are OLLI members. It expanded its outreach when OLLI announced 56 online courses for the current winter term, on topics ranging from cryptography to mindfulness. The Duke Alumni Association invited local alumni to enroll in the first full batch of online offerings this past fall. “I make it a practice to take one class that I know I’m interested in and at least one class that I know nothing about it,” she says. So does Bobbie Hendrix, a retired risk manager for the Duke health system, who has taken OLLI classes on topics as diverse as Islam, fossils, sports and genealogy. “I love still being associated with Duke,” Brill says. Now she’s teaching the online “Shakespeare’s England” class in which Axelrod enrolled. Former campus librarian Margaret Brill took classes on art, opera and other topics after retiring in 2014. Retired Duke staff who previously attended OLLI classes in person have also joined the online shift. Its courses, mostly six or 10 weeks long, are listed on its website. Among the largest of 124 OLLI programs on campuses across the country, OLLI at Duke scrambled this past spring to move its operations online after the pandemic shut down its traditional in-person classes. They and other older adults are taking the classes through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, part of Duke Continuing Studies. Derek Mackesy, an undergraduate lacrosse star at Duke who went on to specialize in sports medicine, is in Ontario, learning about the history of Duke Chapel. Joan Axelrod, who graduated four decades ago, is currently taking four classes on topics ranging from nutrition to Shakespeare from her house in Philadelphia.ĭr. Now hundreds of them are turning to Duke again, finding relief from the COVID-19 pandemic by taking short online classes from the safety of their homes. They spent years on the Duke campus as students, faculty or staff. ![]()
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