Gerontology program receives $100K grant

01/27/09 - With a $100,000 grant from a San Francisco-based organization, the University of Rhode Island hopes to educate people 50 and older.The new program of multi-disciplined classes is led Phillip Clark,a URI gerontology professor. The six-figure donation came from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of San Francisco, Ca.

"Our goal is really for people to get to know each other," Clark said. "The key is learning for the love of learning."

The courses offered are not necessarily academically oriented but "they are courses that people are interested in," he said.

Some courses will be in the form of events, such as a theater production to be performed in the spring at URI, followed by a meet-the-cast -and-director event, or a symphony orchestra performance, followed by a meet the orchestra and the conductor event.

"[These are] liberal arts courses. There will be a spectrum of courses ranging from the arts, like music and theater to humanities, such as English literature, poetry and reading short-stories, to politics, political history and local history [pertaining to] Rhode Island and to more health-related courses," Clark said.

The program is looking forward to collaboration with other programs across the state that address environmental issues, such as the Audubon Society and the Save the Bay organization, as well as various cultures, educational and informative subjects and art, Clark said.

Clark said that if everything goes as planned, the program will be running by the beginning of March. "Traditional multi-week courses [however, will begin] in the fall," he said. They will last six to eight weeks and meet for about one and a half hours. "No tests, no exams, no papers and no homework," Clark said.

The URI Graduate School of Oceanography and the Kingston, Alton Jones and the Providence campuses will be offering classes to all members. Clark and other people involved with the new program are also looking to establish non-university places for learning, such as senior centers.

Interested adults must pay a $50 fee each year and scholarships will be available, Clark said. Classes may have a small additional fee, but many will be free. Clark is working to ensure that members will receive discounts, for certain programs on campus such as at the University Bookstore.

He hopes that the addition of this program will broaden the age demographics on the URI campus.

"Right now it's young people, mainly 18 to 22 years old," he said. "We want to break the age barriers here on the URI campus. We're hoping to recruit people from URI to take the courses, teach the courses and volunteer."

Clark said that the URI program in gerontology became aware of the OLLI program when a local elderly man mentioned it about a year ago.

"At the time we applied, Rhode Island and Delaware were the only ones that didn't have one of these [programs for adults 50 and older]. We were very fortunate to get a grant," Clark said.

Adults 50 years and older are encouraged to volunteer at the program. Students interested in interning are also welcome.