Fall season brings fungus and other cool subjects for life long learners
Sep. 21—MORGANTOWN — The WVU Osher Lifelong Learning Institute held its fall open house at Mountaineer Mall and Professional Plaza on Wednesday in Morgantown. The institute previewed some of the class offerings this fall in a conference type setting where instructors briefly pitched their classes to the audience.
"OLLI was founded on the belief that staying intellectually and socially engaged is very important and helps you age better and more healthy," OLLI Director Jascenna Haislet said. "This is learning for the fun of it and to help stave off some of the effects of getting older. But at the same time it's a great way to have fun and meet new people."
OLLI is a member-based organization, their calendar year runs from July 1 to June 30. It's $30 to become a member, and one class is included with the membership. However, for an additional $35, members can take as many classes as they'd like over the course of the year. Classes are non-credit based and designed for folks 50 and up, however, Haislet said all are welcome to join.
Fine arts, art history, theater, music, film and science are among the courses OLLI offers. They also do field trips, discussion groups, health and wellness classes and cooking. Haislet said over 50 classes are available for registration.
The need for membership recruitment was also perhaps elevated at this fall's meeting. The cuts happening at WVU have impacted OLLI's university funding. Although most of the operating funds for Ollie come in the form of grants and outside memberships, the institute still receives some partial funding from the university. Now with that amount being reduced, OLLI will rely more on its membership numbers to help offset any decrease.
"If you look at all organizations across the country, whether they be religious or educational-based, the pandemic changed a lot of things," Kristie Gregory, chairperson of OLLI's advisory council, said.
Ensuring OLLI's sustainability is among her responsibilities as chair. Although OLLI also saw a pandemic related drop in membership, those numbers are recovering. Those numbers are important not just for financial stability, but also for OLLI's other core mission of providing a social environment for older adults.
One positive to the pandemic was OLLI's pivot to virtual classes, which is still an option for many of the institute's offerings. Haislet said they expand the pool of available members beyond the borders of West Virginia to include people living in other states but that have ties with Morgantown or the university.
As for the educational aspect, it's really about what members want. Haislet keeps a running list of class ideas suggested by her members in her office, and regularly tries to find instructors for those subjects. She doesn't think she'll have to cut any classes and in fact, is looking to add more.
Among the classes offered is a class on fungi taught by a mycologist, a study in comparative religion during times of historical social upheaval taught by a rabbi, and others.
Alan Keiser has been an OLLI member for the past 30 years. He is a retired geologist, and has taught as well as taken courses with the institute. He said it's good cognitive exercise, especially when it comes to teaching subjects.
"You may learn some new information that you may have to reevaluate your thought patterns that you had in the past, change them according to new information," he said. "As a scientist, you have to accept new information, which may change your previous ideas or thoughts on how things work or exist, and reevaluate where you stand because you got new information."
Abobo Kumbalonah, who attended the open house as a show of support for one of his professors, said that he thought classes on display Wednesday were interesting. He's definitely looking forward to checking some out, especially the one about fungus. Although there is a membership fee, the low cost makes these learning opportunities widely accessible.
"This is a free resource, you don't have to pay tuition," he said. "You can still learn something."
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
