OLLI at 40

As we celebrate our 40th Anniversary we will publish a series of articles about our history, reflections, and dreams of the future.

Dear OLLI ... Notable Quotes

As we draw to the close of OLLI's 40th year, we want to thank all those who wrote "Dear OLLI" letters. We have compiled "Notable Quotes" from the letters as a recap of the many thoughtful and heart-warming reflections.

Happy 40th Anniversary OLLI and thanks to the OLLI Staff and IT department and all who make
OLLI the success it is.    Kayla Briggs

Congratulations on your (our) 40 years of successfully educating each other! This organization keeps us all thinking and doing which, I believe, is extraordinarily beneficial in a great many ways. OLLI, simply put, keeps me going;
gives me purpose.   Becky Raye Russell

I started classes at DILR in January 1999. Try to imagine what it was like to have a convocation inside the Bishop’s House!... I’ve basked in the pleasure of the many, many courses I’ve taken, plus the pleasure of the many friends
I have made over the years.    Myron Miller

We at OLLI appreciate you. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to learn, to teach, to bond,
to make friends.   Stephan Wittowsky

OLLI - pretty darn awesome!   Nancy Forer

To say that OLLI has provided a great source of enrichment to our retired lives is not
an exaggeration. Steven and Claudia Markey

It is the continuation of learning and nurturing brain development after retirement that contributes to the enrichment and joy of the last years of one's life. Thank you, OLLI! Vilma Hope

I am a firm believer in lifelong learning and OLLI certainly enriches my life regarding my intellectual, physical, emotional, and social well-being.   Tom Wolf

My wife agrees that by attending courses we have expanded our interests and truly enjoyed learning. Thank you, OLLI, for enriching our lives.    Margot & Dr. Martin Kagan

Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement (DILR) provided the desired opportunities for continual growth and fellowship. I availed myself of these new horizons and continued when DILR transitioned to OSHER LIFELONG INSTITUTE.   Walter Brown

OLLI provides countless opportunities for an individual to expand their minds, their social circles, their interests and abilities. I am anything BUT retired, thanks to OLLI!   Margaret Riley

I’ve enjoyed learning about areas and issues I’ve been curious about and never had a chance to explore. I’ve stretched my creativity with scene work in a drama class and creating fused glass…. I look forward to many years of friendship. I wonder: ‘What we’ll do next?”   Patti Reiser

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.” T. H. White    Phil Carl

[OLLI] is an opportunity to form friendships, mainly with instructors and staff, and my fellow volunteers at the various committees and being able to support OLLI.    Marvin Teer

In little more than two years I’ve made more friends by teaching in this intellectually rich program than I did in more than twenty years of living in the D.C. area.   Richard Melanson

Nearly 9 years ago, I took a course with you in writing. It was love at first write!   Brenda Strobel

Without you, OLLI, I might never have published my first novel.    Phyllis Crabb

Thank you for opening new vistas on lifelong learning.   G. Wade Carmichael

… the most important discovery of all was the new-found self-confidence I gained by stretching myself beyond the feelings of self-doubt and the limitations that imposed on me. At this stage in my life, that is pretty darn awesome!   Nancy Forer

Since 2003 I've taken many courses, from ballroom dancing to science symposiums and they were all wonderful. Now I've taken up the clarinet for the first time in my septuagenarian years.   Gerda Presson

I'm a proud and very enthusiastic member of the (New Horizons) band! I'm having a great time, have found a new musical home and friends.   Dudley Schwartz

Classes … sometimes there is just too much to choose from, but as my friends say: “Isn’t that a good problem to have” and I agree with them.   Dale Briggs

I look forward to each of my OLLI classes. They make me think, sometimes help me with dilemmas, and have never disappointed!   Nancy Truitt

I'm called an instructor at OLLI, but I have learned much more than I have taught during my courses since 2016. I will be participating as long as I can, hoping that OLLI continues to deliver the experience I have come to treasure.   Walter Mears

Teaching for OLLI has been an important part of my life; it enriches my life and makes it more interesting.   Jinxiu Zhao (Alice)

The interactions I’ve had with my students, and the intellectual stimulation I so enjoy in preparing and teaching classes, have inspired me to keep on learning, exploring, and growing.   Juanita Johnson

After a long and rewarding career teaching college students, I was ready to retire but not to abandon teaching. You provided that opportunity, with the added attraction of allowing me to offer courses in any topic or area I chose. In a word, I was free to roam.    Oliver Ferguson

OLLI has had a remarkable impact on my life since I began taking classes in 2006… As a faculty member, the chance
o learn more about a subject that I enjoy and to share my insights with students has become an essential part
of my life.   Margie Satinsky

OLLI has been a major part of our lives, expanding our horizons with new ideas and offering us the chance to meet interesting people. OLLI has kept us young.    Phil & Betty Hopkins

I never had a career until my husband set me up to teach at OLLI. My new career has grown to a variety of different courses to offer. It’s opened the door for me to teach in different places and to expand my own knowledge of ballet.   Couldn’t ask for more than that.   Betsy Bullen

The "students" who have signed up for my classes have been very interested in the topic and have made teaching these courses enjoyable and rewarding.   Eric Johnson

ROZ WOLBARSHT convinced me to teach a class, and I learned about the fantastic spirit and EXTREMELY high quality of all things OLLI, which continue to draw us all in, enriching each and every one.   Sue McMurray

…during my masters I saw that my sponsoring professor spent most of his time researching, not teaching - so I left academia and launched my career in software engineering. Twenty-five years later, I have finally found a way to satisfy my life-long desire to teach, and I'm truly loving every minute of it.   Carey Parker

Even though you are no longer DILR (I knew you then), I continue to treasure all the joy and accomplishment you have brought to my retirement years.   Jim Kinney

Our advice to new retirees who want to keep their bodies and minds functioning at a high level is: "Join us in this wonderful entity called OLLI at Duke."   Bob & Chelley Gutin

OLLI has been a critical and rewarding part of my retirement life.    Gary Childers

I met you, OLLI, on your 34th birthday, when I retired and joined your Science Book Club---a continuing delight. This semester I am amazing my spouse and grandkids with Magic for Grandparents.
I don't think either of us looks a day older than 39!   Leigh Vaughan

Dear OLLI ... We asked YOU to write us!

As OLLI celebrated its 40th anniversary we published in the Spotlight and on the website a series of “Dear OLLI” letters from members and instructors that describe how participation in OLLI has impacted their life and learning.

We truly appreciated hearing from all of YOU! Thank you!

The OLLI at Duke Communications team
communications@olliatduke.org

Read the letters here .

*Film Festival: The Loving Story

You are cordially invited to the final film in OLLI ‘s 40th Anniversary Documentary Film Festival
The Loving Story
Monday, March 5, 2018
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
At Full Frame Theatre in the American Tobacco Campus

In 1958, newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in the dead of night and convicted of the crime of interracial marriage. Banished from Virginia and miserable in exile, they sought support. Bernie Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, young ACLU lawyers, stepped forward and took their case all the way to the Supreme Court.” adapted from Full Frame Program Notes)

Admission is free and no registration!

* Note: In celebration of OLLI at Duke's 40th Anniversary, this is the fifth and film in OLLI Documentary Film Festival.

*Film Festival: Last Days in Vietnam

Monday, February 26, 2018
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
At Full Frame Theatre in the American Tobacco Campus

“...the story of those who responded to moral instinct rather than orders, who broke command to evacuate their allies by air, (and) the story of the thousands who were left behind to find a path of survival in a war-torn city." (adapted from Full Frame Program Notes)

Admission is free, but you must register by Monday, February 26, 2018 at learnmore.duke.edu Click on Advanced Course Search at the bottom of the page and enter the Course ID 2536 in the search box. Or call 919-684-6259.

Non-members are welcome. Simply set up an account without purchasing a membership.

* Note: In celebration of OLLI at Duke's 40th Anniversary, this is the fourth in a 5 part film series aired at Full Frame.

Watch for updates for the last film.

*Film Festival: The Best of Enemies

Monday, January 22, 2018
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
At Full Frame Theatre in the American Tobacco Campus

* Note: In celebration of OLLI at Duke's 40th Anniversary, this is the third in a 5 part film series aired at Full Frame.

OLLI Pub Trivia Night: In honor of OLLI at Duke's 40th Anniversary

At Tomato Jake's Pizzeria
8202 Renaissance Parkway, Durham 27713
Adjacent to Southpoint Mall / Across from Harvest 19

It was fun and helped a worthy cause.

OLLI Celebrity Quizmasters
Wine --- Beer --- Pizza & Pasta (including gluten-free)**
Prizes
On behalf of OLLI at Duke’s 40th Anniversary, 20% of all food and beverages sales were generously donated by Tomato Jake’s to Durham’s Senior PharmAssist.

The 40th Anniversary Committee hosted OLLI Pub Trivia Night as a fundraiser for SeniorPharm Assist which helps individuals understand their Medicare benefits, helps seniors cope with medications, finding optimal sources and pricing for meds, and they even can help with affordability. Much like our OLLI organization, almost all work is done by volunteers, including retired nurses, physicians, and pharmacists.

The event raised $292, provided fun and fellowship to our members, and contributed to the community.

*Film Festival: The Black Panthers

Monday, November 13, 2017
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
At Full Frame Theatre in the American Tobacco Campus

Directed by Stanley Nelson, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution “may be the most nuanced story of the Black Panthers to date, from its beginnings as a survival organization, evolution into the vanguard of a revolutionary movement, and eventual dissolution.”
(adapted from Full Frame Program Notes)

* Note: In celebration of OLLI at Duke's 40th Anniversary, this is the second in a 5 part film series aired at Full Frame.
Watch for updates for the remaining three films.

The OLLI Gala: A memorable celebration captured in pictures.

The Evolution from DILR to OLLI

Submitted by Walter Mears

It was the right question at the right time, and the answer was crucial to the creation of OLLI at Duke.

In 2004, Sara Craven was director of the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement and was seeking foundation grants to help with that rapidly growing program for seniors, which was founded 40 years ago, in 1977.

As part of that search, she contacted the Osher Foundation, which originally funded startup programs, but was turning its support to existing senior learning courses.

“I asked if they would consider funding us old-timers. There was a pause. The answer was, ‘Can you have a proposal to us in three weeks?’” Sara recalls. “I said yes, and the rest is history.”

So in 2004, DILR became the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University. There was one more question – the name of the program. Osher required that its name come first. Some other universities balked at second billing. Duke did not and OLLI at Duke was created.

It began with a $1 million grant from the Osher Foundation. After OLLI at Duke was well underway, another $1 million grant followed. Those grants became the nearly $2.2 million current endowment. It is managed by Duke, but the proceeds go entirely to OLLI, which uses the income for program improvements and expansion. Current expenses are financed through the $35 membership fees now provided by more than 2,200 members, and the $90 fees paid by senior/students for each course. Last year, 2,200 students registered for 5,600 seats in 390 courses, many of which were overbooked and with waiting lists.

That goes to another point about the timing of it all. DILR began as attitudes and even the language was changing about seniors and retirees. When the bill that led to Medicare in 1965 was first introduced in the Senate, it was called health care insurance for the aged – people over 65. By the time President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law in 1965, with 81-year-old Harry S. Truman beside him, the terminology had changed and it was health insurance for the elderly. Over the years that followed, the description changed to seniors.

Older Americans are the fastest growing group in the U.S. population, and that rate is increasing. So is the number of seniors seeking to learn in retirement. The era of rocking chair retirees is long past.

When Jean O’Barr, an organizer and director of the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement, reflects on the origin of OLLI at Duke, she says seniors demanded it. She tells of an episode in the early 1970s, just before the summer break, when she was director of continuing studies. She told a group of senior/students she was looking forward to the break as they must be. “To a person they scolded ‘We don’t want a break. We want classes that continue all the time. Why do you think we retired?’“

“We’d started something larger than I realized, I thought to myself.” She and sociology Professor George Maddox organized DILR, and that began the process that led to OLLI at Duke.

OLLI at Duke Director Garry Crites is working to manage growth he calls “amazing” and “one of our greatest blessings and our biggest challenges.” The university’s direct support of OLLI involves managing the endowment and providing the headquarters at Bishop’s House on the East Campus. That provides space for offices and three small classrooms, barely a start in providing room for the vastly expanded roster of students and courses. He is always looking for classrooms – and for parking, which is a constant problem. Most OLLI classes now are held at locations away from the campus. “Somehow, OLLI at Duke keeps expanding and flourishing despite the growing pains,” he says.

OLLI at Duke is one of 120 lifelong learning programs in the nation, supported by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Osher is a native of Biddeford, Maine, where he began his business career running a large hardware store and as owner of an amusement park at Old Orchard Beach. He moved on to finance in New York and banking in California, building his fortune to become one of the world’s richest men and one of America’s leading philanthropists. He created the Bernard Osher Foundation in 1977.

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Walter R. Mears was a national political reporter, Washington bureau chief, executive editor, vice president and columnist during a 45-year career with The Associated Press. He won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1977 for his coverage of the 1976 presidential campaign. Mears began his AP career in Boston and Montpelier, Vt., joined the Washington bureau in 1961, and was there until his retirement in 2001, with a five-year tour in New York as executive editor from 1984 until 1989. He is the author of “Deadlines Past,” on the 11 presidential campaigns he covered for the AP, and with John Chancellor of NBC, “The News Business,” and “The New News Business.” His wife, Fran, is a former AP bureau chief in Baltimore and served as managing editor for news at Gannett News Service in Washington. They live in Chapel Hill, N.C. Mears is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont.

OLLI Convocation Celebrates 40 Years of
Adventures in Lifelong Learning

Excerpts from the full article by Stuart Wells at Duke Today. Learn more about Stuart Wells.

More than 350 local residents celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at a festive convocation in a ballroom of the Durham Hilton Sunday.

What began in 1977 as the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement (DILR) with 47 people signing up for 12 courses to keep intellectually active in retirement is now a landmark of the Triangle. OLLI, a non-degree program of Duke Continuing Studies and Summer Session, today serves more than 2,200 members, with a typical growth rate of six percent a year.

At the anniversary reception, OLLI Director Garry Crites said the program now comprises a group of world-class instructors offering a “continuing education worthy of the Duke name.” OLLI members are still dreaming as they seek to build programs and serve all of the Triangle region, Crites added, including under-served neighborhoods.

Guest speaker Grant Llewellyn, music director of the North Carolina Symphony, interwove stories from his love of music and soccer, which he described as “the everyman sport, the beautiful global game” that he played as a student at Cambridge, including against a visiting Chelsea team in a special 1981 exhibition.

Both a soccer match – with 22 players employing their feet – and a symphony concert – with some 200 players almost exclusively using their hands -- are similar, he said, in that they “happen live, in the moment,” and are successful when they entertain through both individual precision and effective teamwork.

Steve Thaxton, executive director of the National Resource Center of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, located at Northwestern University, offered welcoming remarks at the ceremony. Afterwards, He said OLLI at Duke “is one that tips academic, and that makes sense, using the intellectual capital and the resources that Duke has to offer.”

Audrey Newton, Organizer of the 40th Anniversary Convocation; Dr. Garry Crites, Director, OLLI at Duke; Dr. Virginia Knight, President, OLLI at Duke

Ciompi Quartet plays to a sold-out crowd at the OLLI convocation

Grant Llewellyn

Margaret McKeon, Membership Committee Chair; Richard Ellman, OLLI member and volunteer; Susanna Chabinak-Uhlig, OLLI member and volunteer; Steve Thaxton, Executive Director, OLLI National Resource Center

A sold-out crowd attends the Convocation celebrating the 40th Anniversary of OLLI at Duke

40 Years and Counting! - Kickoff September 24th

We began OLLI's 40th anniversary celebration with our Convocation, held in the University Ballroom at the Durham Hilton. It was a SOLD-OUT event.

It was an exciting afternoon of music, inspiration, celebration featuring

Winifred Garrett, Harpist
The Ciompi Quartet
Keynote speaker, Grant Llewellyn

The reception that followed nourished the body and spirit. It featured hors d'oeuvres, beverages, and time for socializing.

To know more about Grant Llewellyn, click HERE.
To know more about Ciompi Quartet, click HERE.
To know more about Winifred Garrett, click HERE.

View a copy of the program here.

OLLI Continues to Grow in its 40th Year
Four decades of adventures in lifelong learning on campus

Excerpts from the full article by Stuart Wells at Duke Today:

Jean O’Barr, a former director of Duke Continuing Studies, says a chance encounter with a crowd of retirees enrolled in a continuing education short course convinced her that a lifelong learning institute could be successful.

O’Barr recalls in notes written for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke’s 40th anniversary program … “To a person they scolded: ‘We don’t want a break. We want classes that continue all the time! Why do you think we retired?’”

When it was founded in 1977 as a joint venture of continuing education and the aging center, the Duke Institute for Learning In Retirement (DILR) followed a model of the New School for Social Research. Members taught each other for the first several years, but eventually they tired of teaching every term, says former director Sara Craven. “Gradually, non-members were asked to teach and the program took on new life,” she wrote in a DILR history. “I think we had no idea how popular or important DILR would become,” says O’Barr, who is a longtime OLLI member. “The skills and enthusiasm of the original members exceeded anything I had experienced with adults in classes before."

An advocate of empowering members to use existing talents or to develop new ones, Craven turned over the work of recruiting teachers and developing classes to a volunteer curriculum committee that today includes more than 50 members. The most recent catalog lists more than 150 courses, from “A Guide to Local Jazz” to “Woodrow Wilson.”

Now numbering more than 2,200 and a $2.1 million endowment, OLLI members have fueled an expansion of classroom venues -- mostly concentrated at The Bishop’s House on East Campus and Judea Reform Congregation.

Dr. Wendell Musser, 86, who is teaching the Woodrow Wilson course this fall, says “OLLI to me is a way of life. It stimulates me to act like a 55-year-old kid.”

Jean O'Barr

Sara Craven