When Virginia Isherwood of Wheeling retired from her job as secretary to the principal of a Chicago high school, several things happened.
For one, she said recently, she noticed that she was a widow. Looking back now, she said, ”When I was working, I didn`t notice that I was alone. When I retired that changed. I think that`s part of retiring-you become a fish out of water and you need some place to fit in.”
Secondly, Isherwood, now 69, found a place to fit in at William Rainey Harper College in Palatine, specifically in the college`s educational programs tailored to senior citizens. ”The program,” she said, ”helped me over the hump of retirement.”
Traditionally, senior education has ranged from classes in crafts to playing bridge or watching travelogues. But those are not the kinds of classes Isherwood and others are taking part in these days at senior educational programs at Harper, Oakton Community College in Des Plaines and Skokie, and McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. Instead, these colleges in the northwest suburbs are offering more solid, academically oriented classes specifically designed for the senior population.
”I have been taking the things I didn`t take when I went to college,”
Isherwood said. ”I`m interested in history and literature and politics, but I haven`t taken anything hard like math. I`ve taken a literature course, a class in European government and politics, a class on history of the theater that was fascinating and a class on the presidential elections.”
This semester, she has crossed over from the programs designed for seniors to a regular credit class in, ”believe it or not, electric keyboard. I had a few piano lessons as a child, but I`ve been fascinated by these keyboards.”
Carol Jiusti, coordinator of continuing education for McHenry County College, sees students like Isherwood as part of a trend. She said she has been attending conferences emphasizing the role community colleges will have in working with older students. ”We see that the demographics are saying we`ll be getting older as a nation. I have an advisory committee looking at program planning. I`m at an age where I`m planning programs for people like myself.”
At McHenry, Jiusti said, the college has begun offering programs at non-traditional times, including daytimes and weekends. ”The advisory
committee felt very strongly that they did not want to be separated into the golden agers,” she said. ”I have kept away from calling our programs senior programs.”
The oldest community college program for seniors in the area also avoids such cliched names for its offerings. Last week, Oakton Community College celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Emeritus Program. (Emeritus, according to Webster`s New World Dictionary, means ”retired from active service, usually for age, but retaining one`s title.”) The program, according to Leona Hoelting, manager of the Older Adults Program for Oakton, provides 25 credit and non-credit classes each semester particularly geared for students over 60. In addition, the program features the Emeritus Chamber Orchestra and two musical comedy troupes, Acting Up! and Acting Up Too!
Altogether, Hoelting estimates that Oakton serves approximately 10,000 students each semester in various classes, though some of those are individuals who take more than one class at a time. In addition, this year the college had 600 entries in its creative writing contest for students over 60. Hoelting said the program has developed by seeking the input of the senior students themselves. ”Since I`ve been working here for 10 years, I don`t think of anything as typical anymore. What you could typically say about older adults, you can`t typically say anymore. The students have exploded the stereotypes that I had.”
Examples of the shattered pieces of stereotypes abound when talking to those who work with (or are students in) senior programming. Beverly Fishman of Skokie, a member of the Emeritus Program advisory board, has taken classes in geography, political science, world religions, and opera and said, ”There aren`t enough hours to take everything you want to take.”
One of the added benefits, Fishman noted: ”It`s wonderful to see people who are seniors who are active and alert. I think the best thing is people want to use their minds. The old thing about people sitting home and knitting just isn`t true anymore.”
Jiusti agrees, recalling a recent meeting she attended where the group was made up of persons 75 to 85 years old. ”One woman in the group is a ballet dancer-and she can still do the splits,” Jiusti said.
McHenry and Harper`s programs are smaller and newer than Oakton`s, but interest continues to grow. Molly Waite, associate professor of political science, and Martha Simonson, professor of English and chairwoman of the Humanities Department at Harper, are among the Harper faculty who have been teaching classes designed for seniors.
Waite said students in the classes she has taught have often suggested other possible areas of interest.”We are trying to develop a program that has something for those who want to be intellectually stimulated,” she said.
”(The students) are very adamant at differentiating themselves from the kinds of programs that are traditionally offered for seniors. They are very vocal.”
Not all the college programs consist of classes. Some college programs include what Jiusti calls safe adventures, including trips to Chicago or other nearby destinations and trips overseas.
Oakton offers discussion groups on the humanities at local park districts, libraries and senior citizen centers, which have been well received, Hoelting said. In addition, an Oakton lecture series titled
”Passages” centers on understanding the aging process and dealing with the transitions that occur with retirement, she said. Passages, she said, appeals to people who ”really are trying to understand their lives and what they are going through right now.”
Harper is also expanding its senior offerings, beginning with a lecture series starting this week. The lectures will be held at the college for five consecutive weeks and include such titles as ”New International Trade Dynamics,” ”Art and Spirituality” and ”The Spell of Science Fiction.”
The classes definitely alter the lives of those who take them. Hoelting said she knows one student, a retired chemist with a Ph.D., who has joined one of the school`s acting troupes and also is learning word processing.
Meanwhile, Isherwood continues to practice her electric keyboard and, because of a class on presidential politics taught by Waite, is spending part of this fall working as a volunteer in a congressional campaign. ”The last time I did that,” she said, ”was when I worked for Ike.”
