What causes a mind to degrade?
Is it time’s inevitable wear, dulling what was once a sharp mind? Or is it incumbent upon the individual to stay mentally fit as the years go on?
“There is a growing body of research that has studied the link between lifelong learning and wellness,” says Julie Maurer, program coordinator for The Ohio State University’s Program 60. “Mature learners also have greater resilience when faced with major challenges in life, whether mental or physical. Engaging in educational activities has been associated with reducing depression and improving the quality of life for older adults.”
Program 60 is a tuition-free OSU program for ages 60 and up, dedicated to giving older adults the opportunity to take college courses again and therefore prolong their educational careers. It made its debut 40 years ago with just 185 students.
“There are now about 390 student attending classes through Program 60 each autumn semester,” says Maurer.
Whatever might hinder the brain’s function over time, Bryce Bate, 61, a software developer for OSU, wasn’t going to take any chances. He decided to take advantage of the university program aimed at his demographic.
“My involvement with Program 60 began many years ago as I developed a means by which Program 60 students could gain access to our learning management system,” Bate says. “More recently, I have become eligible to be one of those students.”
Before he was a software developer, Bate studied epistemology – in fact, it was to be the subject of his doctoral dissertation, focused on what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
“Two chapters into writing my dissertation, I found myself unclear about what it was I w
anted to say,” he says. “It happens. I was young and ideas can take time.”
This “back-to-school” approach is an increasingly popular motivation to open up the textbooks again, Maurer says.
“Often, (students) are returning to the university to study subjects that they were passionate about, but didn’t have time to study while pursuing a degree,” she says. “For instance, a recently retired accountant returned to take classes in theater, a practicing neurosurgeon is enjoying physics courses and a Realtor is taking ballet.”
Those who decide to enroll in Program 60 quickly discover renewed interest in learning and seek out new opportunities. One student, after completing one semester of a course through Program 60, soon decided to come back for another, Maurer says, with the comment, “Now let’s see what tickles my academic fancy.”
Even all these years after he decided to go into software development, the urge to learn has never left Bate. He eventually decided to become a member of Program 60 for purely personal reasons – to, he says, “rejoin a conversation to see where some ideas would take me.”
“I decided to sign up for Philosophy 8750: Seminar in Theory of Knowledge,” says Bate. “I had no dissertation to complete. This was not for career advancement.”
To his surprise, the class reminded him of his days as a doctoral student, in more ways than one.
“The class met in the same seminar room in which most of my graduate seminar classes were held years before,” he says. “The visiting professor teaching the class had recently rec
eived his Ph.D. and knew well the names and works of several of my former professors and advisers.”
He was also hit with some harsh reminders, such as the amount of reading and re-reading required and the amount of effort that goes into critiquing arguments. But he generally found the experience to be richly rewarding, he says.
“(My) experience was one in which the discussions took on a familiar tonal quality, a precision in discourse I had not heard for these many years,” he says. “Most of my time was spent enjoying the opportunity to listen to familiar discussions from a more informed perspective.”
So rewarding was this class that it gradually became the highlight of Bate’s week.
“My ‘seminar Fridays’ were the best three hours of my week,” he says. “Program 60 undoubtedly benefits its students in many different ways. I am interested in exploring some ideas in the application of artificial intelligence to learning.”
Bate looks to continue utilizing Program 60 and studying the science of learning.
“I hope to sit in on a computer science course here at Ohio State that will be partnering with IBM to use IBM Watson in their studies,” he says. “I may also take a beginning course in linguistics and perhaps some courses in the cognitive sciences so I can further explore the area of human/machine understanding. The sky’s the limit.”
OSU is a huge school with a huge list of classes, and there are thousands of course options each year for Program 60 students. A few classes are off-limits to the program’s students, particularly in medicine and law, but there are still plenty of graduate and undergraduate offerings that program students can audit on a space-available basis, says Maurer.
Elaine Grogan Luttrull, a Program 60 adjunct professor, praises the program and everything it includes, specifically admiring its applicability.
“Instead of adding what they learn in my class to a long list of other material they are mastering for use at some point in the future, the students who already have robust professional practices outside of the classroom use the information right away,” Luttrull says. “This immediate application is incredibly helpful, both for the older students and the younger ones. The older students return to class with very specific questions about application, as opposed to mere theory, and the younger students are able to file those questions – and more importantly, the answers – away until their professional practices launch.”
Some Program 60 students use the classes to further their careers as well, Maurer says, taking classes that enhance employability, skills and knowledge.
And even if OSU’s course offerings do not hold appeal for the education-oriented older adult, there are plenty of other opportunities as well. The Ohio Department of Aging’s Lifelong Learning program lists are 36 universities across Ohio that offer no-cost college classes for the 60-and-older crowd.
Bate implores those who are eligible to give strong consideration to Program 60 and other endeavors like it.
“Learning has no age boundaries,” he says.
David Allen is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Youth View
What do traditional students think about Program 60?
A comment from one of Maurer’s students illustrates the value program participants bring to class:
“I always wondered about the older folks when I would enter the class, but assumed they were like anyone else wanting to learn and earn a degree, even though I was wrong at the time. In the class, we had multiple Program 60 learners who offered valuable real-life experience, which even (the instructor), a Ph.D. in history, could not do as he was too young. We had the perspective of a Vietnam War vet and a couple from learners who were not veterans of the war. It was awesome to see and hear these people speak both about the war and the culture within the United States, and to really understand what it was like to be alive at the time. Without these Program 60 students, we would’ve never had a real-life perspective, and although it was not a requirement, it provided us younger students with real ideas from real people who were our age at a completely different time in this world.”
Other Outlets
Central Ohio colleges with their own free courses for students over 60
- Central Ohio Technical College (COTC Senior Services)
- Locations in Coshocton, Mount Vernon, Newark and Reynoldsburg
- Clark State Community College
- Springfield
- Columbus State Community College (Good as Gold)
- Downtown Columbus
- Hocking College
- Nelsonville
- Marion Technical College (Sixty Plus)
- Marion
- North Central State College (Program 60)
- Mansfield
- Ohio University
- Athens
- Wright State University
- Dayton
- Zane State College
- Locations in Zanesville and Cambridge
