Meet Mary Alexion - by Beth Timson
Mary Alexion
March 2018
Student, Board member, volunteer, instructor—Mary Alexion has been a part of almost every role that OLLI has to offer. She grew up in New York City and spent most of her working life there in Information Technology, specializing in large data bases. As she and her husband had vacationed in North Carolina for years and had always liked this area, retirement brought them back here. Besides, she jokes, “we got married in the courtyard of the Wilmington jail,” and they felt a connection to North Carolina.
When Mary retired, she read an article on DILR (the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement, OLLI’s precursor) and liked the idea of classes with “no tests and no homework.” She started taking classes in spring 2003; her first class was one on “Color,” she recalls, and it was excellent, as were some literature classes she signed up for. Those classes “gave me a place to explore the right side of my brain,” she explains, after her career in technology. Though she had majored in mathematics in college, she had had no expectation of making a career in technology, but she got hooked by her first job as a computer programmer: “They paid me to solve interesting puzzles,” she notes. Still, the OLLI classes she signs up for draw on her other skills—such as classes in calligraphy and Zentangle (meditative drawing).
Mary’s various volunteer tasks for OLLI are the ways she continues to exercise her technology and work skills and experience: she was the IT Committee Chair (2014) and the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee (2015). One of her first jobs—back before DILR became OLLI and had only about 300 members— was to work on DILR’s PC-based data base that captured member information and class enrollments. She also assisted in the development of a survey to help align programs to meet the needs of the expected surge of enrollment from retiring baby boomers. As she says, “I’ve done various jobs on and off over the years, as OLLI needs help with something interesting and challenging.” Her current position is Webmaster for the OLLIatDuke.org website, “I took the job,” she says, “because I was curious about web development.”
More OLLI members need to pitch in as volunteers, she urges, rather than being only consumers of OLLI classes. ”None of us wants to be back in the world of meetings,” she admits, “and many volunteer jobs don’t need a lot of meetings, but without volunteers, there would be no OLLI.” Perhaps, she muses, there is some way to “carve up volunteer jobs into small do-able tasks” with a limited time commitment. That might appeal to people to pitch in for things, knowing they’re not “signing up for life.” And “thank you’s” she adds quickly: lots of “thank you’s” from the organization. After all, OLLI continues to be one of the best ways “to keep your brain active” in retirement.
Student, Board member, volunteer, instructor—Mary Alexion has been a part of almost every role that OLLI has to offer. She grew up in New York City and spent most of her working life there in Information Technology, specializing in large data bases. As she and her husband had vacationed in North Carolina for years and had always liked this area, retirement brought them back here. Besides, she jokes, “we got married in the courtyard of the Wilmington jail,” and they felt a connection to North Carolina.
When Mary retired, she read an article on DILR (the Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement, OLLI’s precursor) and liked the idea of classes with “no tests and no homework.” She started taking classes in spring 2003; her first class was one on “Color,” she recalls, and it was excellent, as were some literature classes she signed up for. Those classes “gave me a place to explore the right side of my brain,” she explains, after her career in technology. Though she had majored in mathematics in college, she had had no expectation of making a career in technology, but she got hooked by her first job as a computer programmer: “They paid me to solve interesting puzzles,” she notes. Still, the OLLI classes she signs up for draw on her other skills—such as classes in calligraphy and Zentangle (meditative drawing).
Mary’s various volunteer tasks for OLLI are the ways she continues to exercise her technology and work skills and experience: she was the IT Committee Chair (2014) and the Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee (2015). One of her first jobs—back before DILR became OLLI and had only about 300 members— was to work on DILR’s PC-based data base that captured member information and class enrollments. She also assisted in the development of a survey to help align programs to meet the needs of the expected surge of enrollment from retiring baby boomers. As she says, “I’ve done various jobs on and off over the years, as OLLI needs help with something interesting and challenging.” Her current position is Webmaster for the OLLIatDuke.org website, “I took the job,” she says, “because I was curious about web development.”
More OLLI members need to pitch in as volunteers, she urges, rather than being only consumers of OLLI classes. ”None of us wants to be back in the world of meetings,” she admits, “and many volunteer jobs don’t need a lot of meetings, but without volunteers, there would be no OLLI.” Perhaps, she muses, there is some way to “carve up volunteer jobs into small do-able tasks” with a limited time commitment. That might appeal to people to pitch in for things, knowing they’re not “signing up for life.” And “thank you’s” she adds quickly: lots of “thank you’s” from the organization. After all, OLLI continues to be one of the best ways “to keep your brain active” in retirement.
Editor's Note : If you would like to show appreciation to the profiled volunteer, you can email to communications@olliatduke.org