OLLI
celebrates 10-year anniversary
By
Karla Casillas
Summer Forty-Niner
City Editor
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute-Senior University celebrated 10 years
of community service for older adults in the Long Beach community on Saturday.
“We’re very pleased and proud we’ve been here 10 years,” said
Barbara McClinton, who is in charge of community outreach.
Ten years ago, a group of people from CSULB and the Long Beach community got
together and began OLLI. The membership has grown from 50 to more than 700
students.
McClinton said OLLI is dedicated to providing quality education for older adults
in subjects such as the arts, history, physical education, wellness promotion
and many others.
She said the institute is successful because there is always something new
and exciting offered to the students. “Even when the same subject is
covered, it’s different,” she said.
New material is presented or taught in a new angle.”
“We provide programs that [the students] might have had to put off earlier,” she
said. The available classes also appeal to the students interests. A popular
request by the students is the computer class, where students are taught to use
a Mac.
Students also enjoy the classes because they leave learning something new about
themselves that they did not know they had.
“Students come in not knowing their aptitude, but once in class, they realize
they bring a lot to the table. It’s something they wouldn’t have
known before,” McClinton said.
Students also enjoy OLLI because of the interaction and friendships they make. “Once
they take a class, they don’t stop,” McClinton said. “[The
classes] help keep the mind and body active,” she said.
According to their website, OLLI “is totally operated by volunteers,
from faculty to committees and clerical work.”
The main funding comes from the cost of membership and the Bernard Osher Foundation.
Many groups and companies help with the funding too: the Long Beach Community
Medical Center, Pacific Care, Long Beach Transit, Edison, Verizon and many
more, as well as private donations.
OLLI has many plans for the future. McClinton said they want to expand the
program and offer more courses at different times. “We want to reach
more people,” McClinton said. Having the classes on the CSULB campus
draws a lot of people, she said, but they want to increase the diversity in
the program. Expanding the program may require offering some classes off-campus.
Another future goal for OLLI is to get staff members on campus to take classes
during their break and recruit more instructors to teach the classes.
What began as a group effort continues to be a group effort. The volunteer
base is very important to keep the program running, McClinton said. “We
couldn’t do it without volunteers,” she said. “It’s
a community effort.”
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