USF COURSES FOR SENIORS COME TO CARROLLWOOD

By STEPHEN HAMMILL

Carrollwood area seniors wanting to take part in an educational program designed especially for them won’t have to drive to the University of South Florida campus much longer.

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and USF coordinate programs and services for seniors over the age of 50, and starting this winter courses in both programs will be in Carrollwood.

This Bay Area program for seniors, run through the University of South Florida, features the Learning in Retirement program, which offers courses and study groups for seniors in the liberal arts and sciences. Also offered is the SeniorNet program, which provides hands-on computer instruction and training.
The change in program this January will bring a portion of the classes to the Carrollwood area for the first time, at Lake Magdalene United Methodist Church, 2902 W. Fletcher Ave.

Up to 25 percent of the program’s classes will take place off campus in the upcoming year.

Prospective members can meet one another and learn of the offered programs at the open house at the church Jan. 5. Classes begin Jan. 16
Joseph McAuliffe administrates the senior program.

“We’re beginning to branch out into the community,” said McAuliffe, who says holding classes nearer to seniors’ homes will make a big difference. “Especially with seniors, if something’s brought to them, it can really stimulate the community.” McAuliffe is also an adjunct professor at USF.
McAuliffe takes particular pride in the SeniorNet program. “We emphasize the computer foundation classes,” said MaCauliffe. “It’s so important to be able to connect to family.”

Despite the uphill challenge, McAuliffe has seen a marked success in incentive-based training methods.
“It’s so exciting to see seniors work with computers,” he said. “We open their world up to them.”

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a membership-based program where seniors pay an annual fee of $30.

Reaching out

Lake Magdalene church has quite a few groups from the community that use its facilities.
According to the Rev. Richard Nussel, pastor of the church, “We’ve got things going on here basically six and a half days out of seven. The church has a long history in various forms of outreach, with no strings attached.”
Nussel is excited to welcome the Learning In Retirement program to the church.
“It is an opportunity for us to serve the community through the university. I just threw the doors wide open,” he said. “There are a lot of folks in our area that take advantage of the program and I’ve got a number of them in my church.”
Nussel saw what so many other have seen, that LIR “keeps their minds active and gives them a local network … I said whatever we could do to help, we would do.”

Marge Cuesta is chair of the program’s membership committee, which organizes social events for each of the campuses in an effort to expand upon the program’s academic base. She is also an avid student in the program, having attended 85 courses in the four years she has lived here.
“I don’t stop,” she said with a laugh. Cuesta is a retired teacher and principal from Miami. “It’s really a wonderful organization. It literally saved my life. In 1999, I came here and had been ill. I had lost contact with everyone here. Since the program has started I’ve met so many friends.”
Cuesta stresses the program does far more than teach its respective subjects.

“It really provides a lot of opportunity for socialization,” she said. “We organize at least two social events for the seniors each year. This is a way of making new friends.”

McAuliffe agrees.
“The biggest enemy is routine, or rut,” he said “They completely lose the child within them. What I try to do is be a disruptive force. I want to disrupt them out of these staid patterns.”

McAuliffe sees it as his job to “motivate them to do new things, to get out of their habits.”
“I’m like a coach.”

Giving back

Retired teachers, generals, former executives, computer specialists and some active USF faculty comprise the program’s instructors.
Indeed, the breadth of knowledge and experience the instructors bring is something that would make many college-age university students jealous.
“We have one instructor, Dr. Fred Farrar, a professor emeritus from Temple University, who is 88 years old; and at 70 they told him to retire,” said Cuesta. “He says that this has saved his life. He just loves to teach and has so much knowledge. He is just wonderful.”
McAuliffe added his own insight on the older professors.

“I’m more inclined to go with retired faculty because there is the age connection,” he said. “I’m used to teaching 17- to 20-year-olds who may come to me because of a prerequisite, where our students are extremely motivated. They value the experience.”
One of the Learning in Retirement program’s most popular instructors, Susan Bottom, worked for the Department of Defense as a civilian before joining LIR. She retired from special operations command at MacDill Air Force Base in 2002. While there, she taught classes primarily in logistics.
Bottom will be teaching at Lake Magdalene this winter a course on colonial history of the first settlements of the 13 colonies. Past courses she has taught range from British history to building colonies on Mars.

Bottom has been involved with LIR for three years now.
“It is a very rich and incredible experience,” said Bottom. “The people involved are so alert and alive. So many of them have such rich backgrounds … I think I learn more from them than they do from me.”
Like many LIR instructors, she started as a student.

The program

At the Lake Magdalene church open house, visitors will be greeted with coffee and breakfast.
“We have the instructors come and discuss what their classes will be like,” said Cuesta, one of 15 people who serve on the membership committee.
There will be tables set up where most of the instructors will be available to answer questions about the available classes. Visitors will be told about membership, which costs $30 a year.

The Learning in Retirement program offers more than 30 classes, with subjects ranging from astronomy to politics (“Where Is America Going?” ), and from yoga to literature (“The Great Books” ). A typical eight-week class will run $50; additional classes after that will cost just $10 each. There are materials fees for some courses. Classes meet once a week, usually in the daytime.

The program is able to keep down its costs to seniors thanks to outside funding, including a large grant from Osher.
“Another aspect of our organization that is unique is we have a number of seniors volunteering. That has significantly contributed to us being able to keep our prices low,” said Cuesta. She hopes to garner more help this year from local businesses to help defray program costs. “We really appreciate any sponsorship from organizations to help with events.”

Learning new tricks

Caye Wheeler is an instructor for the SeniorNet program. She teaches a course entitled “Introduction to Computers II,” which deals with using word programs, spreadsheets and documents, e-mail and the Internet.
Wheeler acknowledges that while helping students become acquainted with their computers and making them more comfortable with the mouse and the keyboard are still important tasks, there has been a change in her students over the past few years.
“At first, there are a lot of gaps in their knowledge,” said Wheeler. “They just want to be able to keep up with the children and grandchildren.”
Wheeler recalls the story of a recent student, 86 years old, who, on a visit to Epcot Center, sat in front of a computer not knowing how to use it.
“A 6-year-old came up to her and said, ‘I know how to use this computer.’ After that, the woman said, ‘that will never happen to me again,’” she said.
The empowerment that comes from computer literacy is making itself evident in the new crop of SeniorNet students.
“We’re seeing a difference in students the past two years.  They’re coming with more knowledge than before,” said Wheeler. “They come in just wanting to learn e-mail, but by the end of the course they’re so excited to have made a greeting card or to have put numbers in a spreadsheet. We make them more comfortable, and they become more daring.”

Wheeler, like so many of the programs instructors, is also a student, and has been with SeniorNet both teaching and taking courses for four years. She again confirms the greater social impact of these classes.

“This is such an important aspect of the program,” she said. “I’ve gotten so much out of SeniorNet, and I hope others will, too. The impact SeniorNet has on the community – it brings enrichment to people’s lives.”
SeniorNet is observing its 20th anniversary this year by opening learning centers in the inner cities and even onto Native-American reservations, like Blackfeet Achievement Center in Montana.

Students make the story

Carrollwood resident and Vietnam veteran Ken Payant joined the Learning in Retirement program at the behest of friend, fellow student Robbins Denham, five years ago.

“I retired in 2000 and got in LIR right away,” said Payant. “The first course I took was on the Dead Sea Scrolls. A year and a half later we walked the grounds of the Qunran (on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea) in Israel.”
Payant and Denham usually take two courses at a time, and have worked out their own system.
“We take one course we have to think in, study in, read in, and then we take what we call a ‘no-brainer’ – sit back and listen to opera, jazz, Tin Pan Alley,” he said.

He is most interested in biblical history, and has also taken LIR courses on opera and most recently, one entitled “Media: American Revolution,” taught by Farrar.

“It’s really made my life worthwhile,” he said.
Payant is a member of Lake Magdalene’s congregation and looks forward to attending classes at his hometown church. He describes the program as “invaluable. You couldn’t put a price tag on it.”
He recalled how on a recent course in Greek Mythology, “Someone raised a hand and said, ‘How many people would like to go to Greece?’ Two weeks after classes ended we were in Athens!”

Seniors interested in enrolling in the Learning in Retirement program as well as volunteers looking to help should call 974-8036.
The north Tampa open house will be held Jan. 5 at 9:30 a.m. at Lake Magdalene United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 2902 W. Fletcher Ave., Tampa.