OLLI NEWS
Generosity Never Retires - OLLI at California State University, Channel Islands
One Nursing Student's Experience with the OLLI-CSUF Collaboration - OLLI at California State University, Fullerton
OLLI at SVSU Receives the Outstanding Humanities Organization Award - OLLI at Saginaw Valley State University
Writing Stories - OLLI at University of Pittsburgh
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Greetings from the NRC    Jun 2018 15
Occasionally, I hear grumbles from Osher Institute leaders about what their host college or university contributes to their OLLI program. Tighter budgets and fewer available classrooms are common challenges - not just for OLLIs, but throughout all levels and departments in higher education. But in those conversations, I make a point to ask, "What is your Institute doing to contribute to the overall university's benefit?" Sometimes, an awkward silence follows this question. Beyond contributions to OLLI annual campaigns, some members don't consider themselves responsible for contributing in any larger sense to the Institution that hosts their beloved program.
 
That regrettable sentiment is far from the case at three OLLIs we feature in this newsletter. This month, you will learn about the actions of enterprising members finding ways to give back to their college communities. These contributions go beyond financial, relate perfectly to their studies, and the pursuit of lifelong learning. They will make you proud of what OLLIs can do to give back to their host campuses, and maybe give you some ideas.
 
We are delighted at the accomplishments of our colleagues at Osher Institutes, and those accomplishments are often recognized by outside organizations - even competing colleges. Additionally, read about an award OLLI at Saginaw Valley State University recently received.
 
Please let these stories inspire you, and remind you to let us know about your own Osher Institute's accomplishments. These are the stories that we can all celebrate and that help make us better Institutes in the process.
 
Bravo OLLI!
 
Steve Thaxton, Executive Director


 
OLLI at California State University, Channel Islands
Generosity Never Retires
The Washington Post recently brought to light a hidden crisis on college campuses - college students cannot afford to pay for food. California State University Channel Islands is currently experiencing this crisis on their campus - a campus that serves a population where almost half of the students qualify for Pell Grants (indicating the highest financial need). In a 2016 study by California State University, 42% of all CSU students reported food insecurity. These students have often skipped meals because they find themselves choosing between the basic essentials of food and toiletries and the required costs of tuition, fees, and books. In response to this crisis, CSU Channel Islands established the Dolphin Pantry. The Dolphin Pantry is a basic needs pantry meant to provide students with free food and toiletries.
 
As soon as OLLI members discovered the Dolphin Pantry on campus, they sprung to action. Over the course of two months, volunteers in the OLLI Marketing and Outreach committee launched two service initiatives meant to support the basic needs of students on campus. Over three weeks, OLLI members donated hundreds of food items and hygiene products - everything ranging from granola bars and cereal to deodorant and toothpaste. When students came back from Spring Break, they were greeted with a stocked pantry made possible by the generosity of OLLI members.
 
OLLI members' generosity did not end there. Less than a month later, volunteers supported a second initiative on campus called "Ekho's Career Closet" - a program designed to provide professional clothing at no cost to students as they prepare for interviews, internships, and future careers. Over two weeks, OLLI members - many of whom have retired from professional careers - cleaned out their closets and donated suits, ties, shoes, purses, dresses, shirts, and more in advance of the upcoming campus career fair. Members donated enough clothes and accessories to fill two golf carts, and we have the pictures to prove it!
 
We have been humbled by the kindness of our members and the incredible response we received from these two initiatives. Once again, our OLLI members have shown what an invaluable asset they are to CSU Channel Islands community and how "generosity never retires."
 
Submitted by: Courtney Gross, OLLI analyst, OLLI at California State University Channel Islands

OLLI at California State University, Fullerton
One Nursing Student's Experience with the OLLI-CSUF Collaboration Program
Editor's Note: The following article, written by a CSUF nursing student, appeared in the Orange County Register on March 1. Another article about this same Collaboration program with the CSUF School of Nursing, written by OLLI's Vice President External Relations Janice Jeng, appeared in the April ChroniCLE. Beyond her nursing studies at Cal State Fullerton, Amy Lee serves as president of the Chat With a Nurse project involving both licensed nurses and nursing students. The project's mission is to empower underserved families and children throughout Orange County to take charge of their health through health education.
 
In May, I will graduate from California State University, Fullerton with a bachelor's degree in nursing. Without a doubt, I can say that these past two years have been the toughest of my life, but have also been the most rewarding.
 
I have spent sleepless nights cramming pathophysiology and pharmacology into my sleep­ deprived brain. The Nursing Simulation Center, affectionately called the "Sim Lab," became my second home as I practiced assessment skills, catheter insertions, sterile technique and even how to change the sheets with a colleague lying on top. My latte and scone consumption single­handedly kept Starbucks in business as I created 30-page patient care plans. Nursing school has been the most invigorating two years of my life.
 
The Sim Lab became a place for me to explore, to apply the theories I was learning in class. It is a simulated hospital floor with functioning mannequins, IV pumps, ventilators, and even an EKG machine and Code Blue Cart. In 2016, the CSUF Osher Lifelong Learning Institute partnered with the School of Nursing to enhance student learning.
 
The OLLI volunteers came into the Sim Lab dressed in hospital gowns and pretended to be patients, enabling me to sharpen my developing nursing skills on actual "patients." While I had listened to countless simulated heart sounds on the Sim Lab mannequins, it was nothing compared to the fear and excitement of placing my stethoscope on an OLLI volunteer's chest and hearing his actual heartbeat. Bringing the OLLI volunteers into the Sim Lab empowered me and my fellow nursing students to experience a higher quality of hands-on learning, where we could not only fine-tune our assessments, but develop effective communication skills. As challenging as it was, the more I practiced with another person, the more prepared I felt to transition into on-site clinical rotations.
 
Not only do the OLLI volunteers work in the Sim Lab, but they also tutor at the School of Nursing Writing Center. These retired professionals offer writing assistance for nursing students, a resource for which I am personally very grateful. Although I am now fluent in English, it is not my native language. As a young child, I first learned how to read, write and speak in Korean before immigrating to the United States at the age of 8. Throughout the nursing program, I worked with several amazing OLLI writing tutors who helped me polish my papers, recognize areas for improvement, and hone my writing skills. On behalf of the many nursing students for whom English is a challenge, I am deeply grateful for the services provided by the OLLI volunteer tutors.
 
The most surprising benefit from the OLLI and School of Nursing collaboration was the unique relationships that I developed with the volunteers. Whether it was during a health history interview or in the middle of a tutoring session, I loved hearing about the lives and experiences of the OLLI members. Sometimes they shared personal stories about aging or their jobs before retiring. At other times, they talked about their current lives, recent struggles and growing families. These stories allowed me to connect in a deeply meaningful way and ignited in me the desire to create a connection with my patients, especially in their hardest moments. I discovered that it is my responsibility to listen with respect, and to create an environment where my patients know that I value their lives and unique experiences.
 
Soon, I will make the transition from nursing student to registered nurse. I will never forget all those crazy nights of studying and the caffeine-fueled nursing projects. I will be a nurse who truly cares for her patients, a student refined and defined by her incredible experiences in nursing school. As I grow older and eventually retire, it is my goal to return to Cal State Fullerton as a volunteer through OLLI so that maybe I can make an impact on a future student nurse. I look forward to sharing my own life stories with the shy but curious nursing student as she listens to my heart.
~Amy Lee, CSUF Nursing Student
 
Submitted by: Chris Shaw, ChroniCLE Editor, OLLI at California State University Fullerton

OLLI at Saginaw Valley State University
OLLI at SVSU Receives the Outstanding Humanities Organization Award
OLLI at Sagniaw Valley State University recently received the Outstanding Humanities Organization Award from the Delta College Humanities Learning Center in recognition of its humanities-based classes and trips. "This award illustrates just how important OLLI is to the humanities in this region," said Katherine Ellison, the director of OLLI. "Our members truly enjoy learning about the humanities, and we deliver that for them." Ellison accepted the award during a March 18th ceremony at Andersen Enrichment Center in Saginaw. "It was an honor to be recognized in this way by another institution," she said.

Submitted by
: Katherine Ellison, director, OLLI at Saginaw Valley State University

  OLLI at University of Pittsburgh 
Writing Stories
Back in 2007, two things combined to change Richard Haverlack's life, he says. That was the year he started taking Osher Lifelong Learning Classes at the University of Pittsburgh, for one. But the other requires some explaining.
Since that year, Richard has been writing the memoirs of hospice patients. He interviews, works with, writes and prints up hospice patients' stories, and gives them as many copies as they wish. He does this as a volunteer at Pittsburgh's Good Samaritan Hospice.

It was through the many writing classes that Pitt's program offers each year that Richard says he acquired the writing skills to do this work. "Before my OLLI writing classes, I was just a successful guy who had a career based on three science degrees." Now, his OLLI studies have allowed him to "... get the liberal arts education that I missed while building a career in technology."

As part of his first OLLI writing class in 2007, "we had to go out and interview someone and write what was called a 'creative non-fiction story' about them. I'd been a volunteer for the Good Samaritan Hospice for more than a year at that point and wanted to write something about it. I talked with the volunteer coordinator and she mentioned that some of the patients might be interested in "lifestories," as she called them."

This led Richard to write a book about his incredible experiences in coming to and doing his very unique kind of memoir writing. Paths of Heart - Writing Stories Told at Life's End has just been published. It's his memoir of writing hospice patients' memoirs.

And by the way, Richard says he doesn't like that word "patient." He says it describes a powerless person dependent upon others, and in his personal experience with his "writing partners" they are anything but. "For the time I work with them, they leave behind their current situations and their ailments. They are alive in the past, relishing stories and tales that take them back-stories they want others to hear, stories that made them who they are." And he says the stories they tell are always emotional-sometimes poignant, sometimes amazing-but always told as fully immersed in their past, not their present.

When Richard started his patient memoir writing work, he found that there was no "how-to" material on the topic, perhaps because writing the memoir of another is really like ghostwriting. So he took care to develop tools and techniques to do the work. Learning that many other OLLI students were interested in preserving the stories of other people as well, he worked up his material into a five session workshop in which he teaches what he learned and gives students a chance to practice.

Submitted by: Sharon Gretz, director, OLLI at University of Pittsburgh

newstaff
Osher NRC 2017-18 Webinar Series

Mark your calendar for the next webinar on June 20, 2018 beginning at 2pm Eastern/1pm Central/noon Mountain/11am Pacific/10am in Alaska and 9am in Hawaii. Register for the webinar here.

Increasing Social Engagement through Lifelong Learning
This webinar is offered in partnership with engAGED - the virtual resource center of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging and the Osher Institute Network. Increasingly, social isolation and loneliness among older adults is recognized as a significant health risk. Measures of its prevalence suggest epidemic proportions. It is considered more detrimental than obesity or smoking by some researchers. How can engagement in lifelong learning institutes (LLIs) protect against the effects of social isolation? Where and how do lifelong learning institutes operate?  From a national perspective, a local OLLI's perspective, and a member/volunteer leader's perspective, learn about the largest group of LLIs - the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (or OLLIs), which operate in all 50 states. This webinar will demonstrate how lifelong learning is an effective and life changing intervention to social isolation for elders. 
 
Presenters
Steve Thaxton 
Executive Director, Osher NRC

Adam Brunner 
Director, OLLI @ Temple University

Donna Satir
Volunteer Leader, OLLI @ Temple University

If you have interest in being a presenter or have ideas for other topics, please contact Kevin Connaughton (kevin.connaughton@northwestern.edu ). 

  Scottsdale, AZ - October 2018
conference2018 Osher Institutes National Conference
We are excited to announce that you can now view the breakout session descriptions and the schedule-at-a-glance for the conference on the NRC website! Please be sure to review the breakout session descriptions in advance as you will be signing up for your choice of sessions during registration. 
 
Reminders:
  • Registration for the conference will begin on June 20, 2018 and close on July 6, 2018.
  • We limit participation to two attendees per Institute to make it possible for the delegates, National Resource Center staff and the Osher Foundation staff and Board Members to meet each other, network, and have substantive discussions and interactions. An invitation email will be sent to only the main staff contact at each institute for their coordination. Each OLLI may decide upon the two delegates selected, but we request that one staff leader and one volunteer leader attend from each Osher Institute. The Osher Foundation is pleased to cover the cost of registration, accommodations, and meals for attendees. Individual Institutes will be responsible for arranging and paying for transportation of their participants to the conference, including airline travel, ground transportation to and from the airport and personal expenses incurred during travel. You can find transportation options on the NRC website.

An Advice Column for Osher Institute Staff and Volunteers
dearolliDear Olli
Dear Olli,
Working on the Fundraising Committee for our Annual Campaign is sometimes hard. When our class announcements and appeals begin, I start to hear members complain. Some don't understand why after paying membership and class fees they're asked for more. Many don't necessarily want their contributions to go to the university, and some feel they don't have enough to give to make any difference. What's a good committee member to do?
~Trying
 
Dear Trying,
Sometimes it is discouraging when folks don't see the bigger picture of running an Osher Institute. That picture includes ensuring the OLLI is financially and operationally sound. At most Institutes, the fees don't cover the full cost of the benefits members enjoy. If the entire cost of membership was to be charged, that fee would likely be unaffordable for some members. Throughout the Osher Network, Institutes operate using multiple resources and revenue streams, including in-kind contributions. Between the diverse contributions of the host college/university, the volunteer contributions of instructors and leaders (including your committee work), the fees from members, and the earnings from the Osher endowments, OLLI programs need all those different resources to keep running. Annual Campaigns are great ways to direct member's cash contributions solely to fund the Osher Institute. Like so many other philanthropic efforts, it isn't the amount of each contribution that matters most, it is the act of many members showing their support, regardless of the amount of their gift. To see a large percentage of members contributing is a sign of an OLLI with solid program backing. And it shows that current members care about the future of the program - strengthening it for enduring sustainability.
 
Part of your committee's job is to communicate those sentiments and needs. You won't influence everyone, but you will make progress in establishing a culture of shared responsibility. Celebrate all your successes! They are key parts of long-term success for your Osher Institute.
~Olli

Have a question for Olli? Please send it in care of Stacey Hart at the NRC:Stacey.Hart@Northwestern.edu  

OlliTraveler
Educational Travel Ideas from the OLLI Network
The OLLI Traveler
OLLI at University of Rhode Island
Quebec City
Experience one of the world's most romantic cities and capture a taste of Europe without the jet lag. Travel down cobblestone streets and discover the charm of the old city. Wonderful accommodations are provided at your hotel close to the historic downtown area. Dine in romantic cafes and discover the "joie de vivre" of French Canada. Learn more about this trip to Canada.
Dates: June 24-27, 2018

OLLI at University of South Florida
Fall Colors & Lighthouses of the Great Lakes
This exciting trip to the great lakes region includes two nights in Chicago with a city tour and visit to the Gerald R. Ford Museum, two nights on Mackinac Island with a carriage tour, Grand Hotel lunch and a visit to the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. Travel on to Green Bay with a Green Bay and Lambeau Field tour as well as a visit to Michigan's upper peninsula and Door County. Highlights there include a fish boil dinner, the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse and a Wisconsin Upper Dells boat cruise. Learn more about this trip to the Great Lakes.
Dates : September 27-October 5, 2018

OLLI at Berkshire Community College
Picnic Dinner and Baseball
Enjoy a family friendly night out with OLLI and friends. Your ticket includes reserved seats behind home plate and an al fresco picnic dinner.  Great views of every pitch! Bring your camera and binoculars. What's on the menu? Grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken, pasta salad, watermelon, brownies, iced tea, and lemonade.  (Beer is available for purchase.) Wahconah Park is one of the last remaining ballparks in the United States with a wooden grandstand and is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was constructed in 1919 and seats 4,500. An article about historic Wahconah Park in Sports Illustrated was entitled "Just a Little Bit of Heaven." Game night is Friday, June 1, 2018 to see the Pittsfield Suns play the Bristol Blues.  Learn more about this trip to Wahconah Park.
Date: June 1, 2018

Quick Tips for Helping Operate an Osher Institute
didyouknowQuick Tip - Honoring OLLI Teachers

Teachers and discussion leaders play a vital role at Osher Institutes. Recognizing those who go above and beyond is important to show appreciation for their work. OLLI at University of California Berkeley honors an individual each year with an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute's Excellence in Teaching and Learning award. This award is given annual to a UC Berkeley faculty member who teaches at OLLI and who has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to engaged learning, both in the classroom and in the world outside the university. Express your OLLI's gratitude while honoring teaching excellence. It might encourage others to offer their teaching expertise to the program.



  Career Openings in the OLLI Network
jobboardJob Board
OLLI Program Coorinator

Education Strategy and Planning Manager 2 (Director of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Penn State York)

Executive Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

Is there a staff opening at your Osher Institute? Please send it to us at  oshernrc@northwestern.edu