Celebrating our Members
OLLI at Duke is blessed to have many highly accomplished people as members of our Lifelong Learning community. This page celebrates member and instructor authors and their books as well as news about other recent accomplishments of our members.
We solicit articles on these topic from members and instructors. If you have something you would like to share or know of another member who has recently celebrated an accomplishment, fill out a submission form here.
We solicit articles on these topic from members and instructors. If you have something you would like to share or know of another member who has recently celebrated an accomplishment, fill out a submission form here.
You can scroll through the page or jump to the Authors' Corner or Members in the News by clicking the appropriate button.
OLLI Author Ruth Pearce Talks about her Book
“Writing a book was a BIG learning experience,” says OLLI author Ruth Pearce. She describes her book, Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-Based Project Management, as “part business fable and part how to. It is intended primarily for project leaders who want to discover more about who they are and who the people around them are too.”
“Writing a book was a BIG learning experience,” says OLLI author Ruth Pearce. She describes her book, Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-Based Project Management, as “part business fable and part how to. It is intended primarily for project leaders who want to discover more about who they are and who the people around them are too.”
In the book, she describes how discovering the different strengths of members of a project team, and then working to those strengths, both gets work done effectively and teaches individual team members about themselves and how they operate best.
She has made the book an enjoyable read, not a list of dry prescriptions: “The content is intended to be readable, relatable and practical! Having read the book, anyone will be able to make mindful socially intelligent adjustments to their interactions with others.” The skills she discusses are based on hard evidence, but they are also woven into a story of how positive psychology practices can function in real life situations.
She has made the book an enjoyable read, not a list of dry prescriptions: “The content is intended to be readable, relatable and practical! Having read the book, anyone will be able to make mindful socially intelligent adjustments to their interactions with others.” The skills she discusses are based on hard evidence, but they are also woven into a story of how positive psychology practices can function in real life situations.
OLLI Author Publishes First Novel in New Mystery Series
Molten Mud Murder is a mystery set in wild, rugged New Zealand. Alexa Glock, a forensic odontologist, Tarheel born, doesn't want to leave “the land of the long white cloud” when her visiting fellowship is over. When a body is found half-submerged in a molten mud pot, she finds a way to prolong her stay. Teeth are her expertise and other ways of identifying the body have... melted away. At the heart of Molten Mud Murder is an age old debate: is the past better left undisturbed, or dug up?
Joining Detective Inspector Bruce Horne and his team, Alexa discovers that the murder victim, a city councilman, had trespassed on an island sacred to the Maori. The ancient punishment for such a transgression is disaster, demonic possession, or death… and when she visits the island to investigate, the same outcome is promised for her. Alexa doesn’t believe in
ancient spirits returning to exact revenge, and when another victim turns up dead she begins to wonder whether the real threat is something—or someone—much closer to home. Published by Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, Molten Mud Murder is the first in the Alexa Glock Mystery series.
Author Sara Johnson says that the book was inspired by the nine months she and her husband spent in New Zealand. As she notes, “Everywhere I looked was a mystery that needed writing. The hardest part of the novel process was finding an agent. It took a year and 60 queries. In 2018, Bradford Literary Agency had 8,676 queries, and accepted 9 new clients, one of which was me. Whew!”
Molten Mud Murder is a mystery set in wild, rugged New Zealand. Alexa Glock, a forensic odontologist, Tarheel born, doesn't want to leave “the land of the long white cloud” when her visiting fellowship is over. When a body is found half-submerged in a molten mud pot, she finds a way to prolong her stay. Teeth are her expertise and other ways of identifying the body have... melted away. At the heart of Molten Mud Murder is an age old debate: is the past better left undisturbed, or dug up?
Joining Detective Inspector Bruce Horne and his team, Alexa discovers that the murder victim, a city councilman, had trespassed on an island sacred to the Maori. The ancient punishment for such a transgression is disaster, demonic possession, or death… and when she visits the island to investigate, the same outcome is promised for her. Alexa doesn’t believe in
ancient spirits returning to exact revenge, and when another victim turns up dead she begins to wonder whether the real threat is something—or someone—much closer to home. Published by Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, Molten Mud Murder is the first in the Alexa Glock Mystery series.
Author Sara Johnson says that the book was inspired by the nine months she and her husband spent in New Zealand. As she notes, “Everywhere I looked was a mystery that needed writing. The hardest part of the novel process was finding an agent. It took a year and 60 queries. In 2018, Bradford Literary Agency had 8,676 queries, and accepted 9 new clients, one of which was me. Whew!”
Members in the News
OLLI Member Survey
Thanks to the 729 members who participated in the 2020 Member Survey! The Director and OLLI Board will use your input to make OLLI even better. Analysis is underway and will be reviewed with the Board in April, and survey results and action plans will be reported to OLLI members later this spring.
Thanks to the 729 members who participated in the 2020 Member Survey! The Director and OLLI Board will use your input to make OLLI even better. Analysis is underway and will be reviewed with the Board in April, and survey results and action plans will be reported to OLLI members later this spring.
Interview with Judith Ruderman on OLLI’s Earliest Days
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Judith Ruderman was the Director of Continuing Education (CE) at Duke from 1983 to 1995 when she left CE to become a Vice Provost at Duke. But it all began when she finished her PhD in English at Duke. With two small children and a husband working as a medical resident, she needed employment close to home. It was the late 1970s when Ruderman presented herself to Jean O’Barr, then the Director of CE. She told O’Barr that if she would give her a desk and a phone, she would write grant proposals for the humanities programs and promised to fund her own salary and more.
O’Barr had already started Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement (DILR) under the auspices of CE prior to Ruderman’s arrival. A few years later, O’Barr went on a sabbatical with her husband, and Ruderman was appointed acting Director of CE. When O’Barr returned, she took another position at Duke, and Ruderman became the permanent Director of CE. |
Ruderman recalled that the highlights of her association with DILR/OLLI include getting to know the instructors and members and teaching at DILR. As the Director of CE, she attended the Board meetings of DILR and also enjoyed getting to know the Board members. During her tenure at CE, the Bishop’s House became the home of both CE and DILR. Prior to moving to the Bishop’s House, CE and DILR operated out of other buildings on East Campus. She also lobbied for more recognition for CE and DILR and more classroom space. Along with her administrative duties as director, she also taught courses for DILR, including a survey of Jewish-American literature and classes on some of her favorite authors: William Styron, D.H Lawrence, and Joseph Heller.
Ruderman admits she does not know the current challenges facing OLLI; her work teaching undergraduates at Duke keeps her busy. But she wonders whether OLLI has any scholarship funds for members who need help with paying for courses and whether there is money for field trips. She thinks that scholarship funds might help to diversify the organization.
Judith knows that the strength of OLLI is in its mission statement. Those strenghs include fostering life-long learning, “keeping the brain neurons firing”, and finding opportunities for social interactions. And she says that she believes that Duke does value the presence of OLLI on campus and what it brings to the university.
Ruderman admits she does not know the current challenges facing OLLI; her work teaching undergraduates at Duke keeps her busy. But she wonders whether OLLI has any scholarship funds for members who need help with paying for courses and whether there is money for field trips. She thinks that scholarship funds might help to diversify the organization.
Judith knows that the strength of OLLI is in its mission statement. Those strenghs include fostering life-long learning, “keeping the brain neurons firing”, and finding opportunities for social interactions. And she says that she believes that Duke does value the presence of OLLI on campus and what it brings to the university.
OLLI Has Not Always Been Large!
Sara Craven first encountered OLLI when she started working upstairs in the Bishop’s House in Continuing Studies. At that time, the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement (DILR) was eight years old. After a year, the DILR director, Sallie Simons, retired and
Sara was appointed to the post. It was her great good fortune to remain as director for 20 years, from 1987 to 2007.
The DILR program in those days was small: it had started with 42 students, and even when it was ten years old, it only had about 20 courses and 200 students per term. We had nothing like the data base and registration that OLLI has now, she recalls. “I kept
the class registrations in a spiral notebook, even when we got up to 600 students; and the class rosters were typed and mimeographed.”
Over time, she realized that the DILR program would be better able to help other fledgling programs if it became part of a national association supported by Elderhostel. After the Osher Foundation began funding new learning-in-retirement programs, the Duke program was one of the first of the established programs to become a part of the Osher network. OLLI at Duke received an initial grant of $1 million and later a second million as a “super-OLLI.”
Sara says the best thing about OLLI is getting to know the wise and interesting and perceptive people who choose to come to OLLI. There is an atmosphere of curiosity and enthusiasm – and there is nothing as invigorating as a new idea. She remembered
the retired engineer who had taken only a few electives in the humanities when he was in college. Making up for lost time, one semester he led a Great Books course and took two others on Faulkner and James Joyce. The humanities and older people are a natural fit, she says. As we seek to make sense of our lives, the humanities show us the many commonalities between people over time and space. The joy and concerns of people in 12 th century Wales or Japan are not dissimilar from our own.
OLLI is fortunate that it has so many instructors who are willing to share their passions, both those who share their long-time professional interests and those who teach a topic that has been an avocation. One Duke faculty member came to Sara after teaching his first OLLI class and said “Now I remember why I went into teaching in the first place.”
She notes that space and parking continue to be challenges. When Sara began in 1987, we had nearly 200 members. (She had to pad the mailing list to get to the 200 required for the bulk mail discount. She sent 10 to herself.) Now, with more than 2500
members, some get to our headquarters in The Bishop’s House only rarely. Our goals have always been to be a learning community, and it is difficult to form such a community when classes are at many different sites. Her magic wand would produce
space in which the staff and the majority of classes would be in the same location. She feels that the best space encourages an organization to be more than it has been, to tackle projects that would have been impossible elsewhere.
When asked about diversity, Sara agreed it is an ongoing challenge. Of the original 42 members in 1977, five were African American. The percentage is lower now. Over the years there have been a number of concerted efforts to expand the number of black participants, but they have been only modestly successful. It has always been a goal to be a learning community for all. We have much to learn from each other.
Sara wishes to express her gratitude to OLLI members and to the OLLI organization as a whole for providing her with the opportunity to grow and learn with them. How is today’s OLLI different from that original program, she was asked, and she gave that question a thoughtful moment: “We’re larger and successful, so we have to work harder to create community, but everyone now can find a niche in OLLI, from volunteering to just attending classes.” Finally, she laughs: “It’s good for you, being with people who are curious. OLLI is preventive mental health. There’s nothing more invigorating than being around people who are full of ideas.”
Sara Craven first encountered OLLI when she started working upstairs in the Bishop’s House in Continuing Studies. At that time, the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement (DILR) was eight years old. After a year, the DILR director, Sallie Simons, retired and
Sara was appointed to the post. It was her great good fortune to remain as director for 20 years, from 1987 to 2007.
The DILR program in those days was small: it had started with 42 students, and even when it was ten years old, it only had about 20 courses and 200 students per term. We had nothing like the data base and registration that OLLI has now, she recalls. “I kept
the class registrations in a spiral notebook, even when we got up to 600 students; and the class rosters were typed and mimeographed.”
Over time, she realized that the DILR program would be better able to help other fledgling programs if it became part of a national association supported by Elderhostel. After the Osher Foundation began funding new learning-in-retirement programs, the Duke program was one of the first of the established programs to become a part of the Osher network. OLLI at Duke received an initial grant of $1 million and later a second million as a “super-OLLI.”
Sara says the best thing about OLLI is getting to know the wise and interesting and perceptive people who choose to come to OLLI. There is an atmosphere of curiosity and enthusiasm – and there is nothing as invigorating as a new idea. She remembered
the retired engineer who had taken only a few electives in the humanities when he was in college. Making up for lost time, one semester he led a Great Books course and took two others on Faulkner and James Joyce. The humanities and older people are a natural fit, she says. As we seek to make sense of our lives, the humanities show us the many commonalities between people over time and space. The joy and concerns of people in 12 th century Wales or Japan are not dissimilar from our own.
OLLI is fortunate that it has so many instructors who are willing to share their passions, both those who share their long-time professional interests and those who teach a topic that has been an avocation. One Duke faculty member came to Sara after teaching his first OLLI class and said “Now I remember why I went into teaching in the first place.”
She notes that space and parking continue to be challenges. When Sara began in 1987, we had nearly 200 members. (She had to pad the mailing list to get to the 200 required for the bulk mail discount. She sent 10 to herself.) Now, with more than 2500
members, some get to our headquarters in The Bishop’s House only rarely. Our goals have always been to be a learning community, and it is difficult to form such a community when classes are at many different sites. Her magic wand would produce
space in which the staff and the majority of classes would be in the same location. She feels that the best space encourages an organization to be more than it has been, to tackle projects that would have been impossible elsewhere.
When asked about diversity, Sara agreed it is an ongoing challenge. Of the original 42 members in 1977, five were African American. The percentage is lower now. Over the years there have been a number of concerted efforts to expand the number of black participants, but they have been only modestly successful. It has always been a goal to be a learning community for all. We have much to learn from each other.
Sara wishes to express her gratitude to OLLI members and to the OLLI organization as a whole for providing her with the opportunity to grow and learn with them. How is today’s OLLI different from that original program, she was asked, and she gave that question a thoughtful moment: “We’re larger and successful, so we have to work harder to create community, but everyone now can find a niche in OLLI, from volunteering to just attending classes.” Finally, she laughs: “It’s good for you, being with people who are curious. OLLI is preventive mental health. There’s nothing more invigorating than being around people who are full of ideas.”
Remembering Wendell Musser’s Time with OLLI
Wendell Musser told the interviewer that he joined DILR after the death of his first wife and found that it offered him a way to address the deep grief and isolation her death brought. Despite a successful career in academic medicine, and even a stint in the
Nixon administration, the loss of his wife left him feeling alone and withdrawn. What he found was a community that helped him become whole again and put his life on a new trajectory as an OLLI instructor.
He described OLLI as a “blessed jewel,” an outreach to people which offers them acceptance, love, concern, and, especially, identity. He noted that loss of identity is a devastating experience; and as we grow older, we lose identity as we leave our careers, the colleagues and friends we have made, and even the places we have lived most of our lives. OLLI offers and supports a new identity which Wendell described as “good medicine” as it becomes a blocking agent for the ailments of the older individual. The friendships formed in OLLI are genuine and enduring.
In January, 2005, after teaching his first course on Churchill, his life started on a new trajectory thanks to OLLI. By 2017, Wendell had taught 38 courses, and he said what always struck him most as he saw a new class before him was the sheer brainpower
evident in that classroom. The intelligence, energy, and experience each OLLI member exudes is phenomenal. When evident in discussions (and even disagreements) among OLLI members, it is a true life-force. And we all benefit from that. Wendell said that he envisioned a path forward for OLLI at Duke that involved strategic planning, organization, funding, and a dedicated OLLI building.
Wendell Musser told the interviewer that he joined DILR after the death of his first wife and found that it offered him a way to address the deep grief and isolation her death brought. Despite a successful career in academic medicine, and even a stint in the
Nixon administration, the loss of his wife left him feeling alone and withdrawn. What he found was a community that helped him become whole again and put his life on a new trajectory as an OLLI instructor.
He described OLLI as a “blessed jewel,” an outreach to people which offers them acceptance, love, concern, and, especially, identity. He noted that loss of identity is a devastating experience; and as we grow older, we lose identity as we leave our careers, the colleagues and friends we have made, and even the places we have lived most of our lives. OLLI offers and supports a new identity which Wendell described as “good medicine” as it becomes a blocking agent for the ailments of the older individual. The friendships formed in OLLI are genuine and enduring.
In January, 2005, after teaching his first course on Churchill, his life started on a new trajectory thanks to OLLI. By 2017, Wendell had taught 38 courses, and he said what always struck him most as he saw a new class before him was the sheer brainpower
evident in that classroom. The intelligence, energy, and experience each OLLI member exudes is phenomenal. When evident in discussions (and even disagreements) among OLLI members, it is a true life-force. And we all benefit from that. Wendell said that he envisioned a path forward for OLLI at Duke that involved strategic planning, organization, funding, and a dedicated OLLI building.
Parting Thoughts from David Blazevich, Osher Foundation Program Director
David Blazevich is leaving his position as Senior Program Director at The Bernard Osher Foundation for a new job as Executive Director of the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco. But he shared some thoughts with the national OLLI Board that are
relevant for OLLI members everywhere. Here are his remarks.
"Soon after I began working at The Bernard Osher Foundation thirteen years ago, I met a wonderful volunteer during a site visit who helped me understand the real value and importance of the Osher Institutes. As we walked together, she greeted nearly everyone we passed by name. Her cheerfulness was contagious, and I could see why she was so effective on the program's membership outreach committee.
"But when I asked her how she became involved, her response took me back. Soon after she and her husband moved to the area for retirement, he died unexpectedly. She suddenly found herself alone in a new city, and she didn't have enough money to move back home.
To escape the emptiness of her apartment, she took an Osher Institute class. In addition to intellectual stimulation and a much-needed distraction from grief, she found something she felt was even more valuable: a new community of good friends. 'This
program saved my life,' she told me. She also said that she now felt an obligation to make her Osher Institute as welcoming as possible to help others avoid the kind of isolation she experienced.
"Her story, and hundreds of others like them I've encountered over the years, exemplifies what's so powerful and inspiring about the work that all of you do every day. Your educational programs offer not only opportunities for intellectual growth, they also bring people together, lift them up, and help them find community, connection, and purpose.
"They provide a welcoming place to explore big ideas, make discoveries about our common humanity and interconnectedness, and become a part of something larger than ourselves. And, with 124 Osher Institutes now collectively serving more than 200,000 people in nearly 390 cities across the country, it has indeed been profoundly rewarding to be part of something that has become so much larger and more meaningful than I could have ever imagined, walking with that volunteer all those years ago.
"Working with all of you, Mr. and Mrs. Osher, Mary Bitterman, our trustees, my colleagues at the Osher Foundation, and Steve Thaxton and his terrific team at the NRC to advance the Osher Institute network and its inspiring mission has been a wonderful journey and a tremendous honor. I thank you and salute the enriching educational programs and thriving learning communities you have created that mean so much to so many."
With sincere gratitude,
David Blazevich
David Blazevich is leaving his position as Senior Program Director at The Bernard Osher Foundation for a new job as Executive Director of the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco. But he shared some thoughts with the national OLLI Board that are
relevant for OLLI members everywhere. Here are his remarks.
"Soon after I began working at The Bernard Osher Foundation thirteen years ago, I met a wonderful volunteer during a site visit who helped me understand the real value and importance of the Osher Institutes. As we walked together, she greeted nearly everyone we passed by name. Her cheerfulness was contagious, and I could see why she was so effective on the program's membership outreach committee.
"But when I asked her how she became involved, her response took me back. Soon after she and her husband moved to the area for retirement, he died unexpectedly. She suddenly found herself alone in a new city, and she didn't have enough money to move back home.
To escape the emptiness of her apartment, she took an Osher Institute class. In addition to intellectual stimulation and a much-needed distraction from grief, she found something she felt was even more valuable: a new community of good friends. 'This
program saved my life,' she told me. She also said that she now felt an obligation to make her Osher Institute as welcoming as possible to help others avoid the kind of isolation she experienced.
"Her story, and hundreds of others like them I've encountered over the years, exemplifies what's so powerful and inspiring about the work that all of you do every day. Your educational programs offer not only opportunities for intellectual growth, they also bring people together, lift them up, and help them find community, connection, and purpose.
"They provide a welcoming place to explore big ideas, make discoveries about our common humanity and interconnectedness, and become a part of something larger than ourselves. And, with 124 Osher Institutes now collectively serving more than 200,000 people in nearly 390 cities across the country, it has indeed been profoundly rewarding to be part of something that has become so much larger and more meaningful than I could have ever imagined, walking with that volunteer all those years ago.
"Working with all of you, Mr. and Mrs. Osher, Mary Bitterman, our trustees, my colleagues at the Osher Foundation, and Steve Thaxton and his terrific team at the NRC to advance the Osher Institute network and its inspiring mission has been a wonderful journey and a tremendous honor. I thank you and salute the enriching educational programs and thriving learning communities you have created that mean so much to so many."
With sincere gratitude,
David Blazevich