Interested in taking classes with no assigned grades and no exams? Some students might have to wait more than 30 years to enroll.
Senior University at California State University in Long Beach offers special classes for students older than 50 years old.
Since its inception five years ago, Senior University enrollment has grown from 100 to 500 students. Besides a small membership fee, tuition is only $10 a class.
“Senior University gives retired people the opportunity to continue learning and growing,” said Elizabeth Keavney, office administrator and the program’s only paid employee. “They also get to mingle and meet new friends.”
Classes are taught by a volunteer staff who have a particular expertise in a subject area. Volunteers include retired professors and other community members.
Northwestern has offered a similar program through the School of Continuing Education’s Institute for Learning in Retirement, or ILR, since 1987. The 371 Evanston campus students and 168 Chicago campus students learn in seminar-style discussion groups without lectures or professors. The sessions are student-led. For example, in a class about New Yorker magazine, students discuss articles in the publication.
Students taking ILR classes range from their mid-50s to early-90s. On the institute’s Web site (www.northwestern.edu/scs/nuilr), Program Director Barbara Reinish says participants’ years of life experience enrich class discussions. The institute received an Award for Excellence from the National Association for Higher Education and the Illinois Council on Continuing Higher Education, according to the site.
ILR student Patsy Thrash said her favorite classes are Poetry for Pleasure, current events discussions and art practice classes. She also enjoys contributing to the ILR Journal, the program’s literary magazine.
Thrash, a lifelong Evanston resident, has received two degrees from NU, including a Ph.D.
“The best elements are the friendships and inspiration from so many gifted people,” Thrash said.
ILR charges a flat membership fee of $310 for the year. With that membership fee, ILR students get most of the benefits other students receive, including WildCARDS, library privileges and Internet access, Thrash said.
“I hope the younger students think having older folks hanging around campus is an OK idea,” Thrash said. “We really appreciate Northwestern for offering us these opportunities.”
And ILR students are visible on campus.
“I often see a group of older students eating lunch in Norris,” Weinberg sophomore Beth McElfresh said. “They talk about their classes just like the average NU student.”
