Learning through life: Institute for Learning in Retirement starting up
SLIPPERY ROCK — An institute on Slippery Rock University’s campus has no tests, no grades and no minimum GPA requirement. In other words, it’s all the fun parts of learning and teaching with none of the drawbacks.
The Institute for Learning in Retirement is a nonprofit organization that provides an informal environment for educational, cultural and recreational experiences for adults. The organization started as somewhat of an SRU offshoot, which previously was run by university professors in their off time, but now has come to be led mainly by the institute’s students themselves.
The institute had its annual open house Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7 and 8, for its coming spring semester, which boasts more than 40 classes and even more trips that are available for people to sign up for through June.
Janet Leise, president of the institute’s board of directors, started as a student and now leads classes of her own through the organization. She said the organization helps people stay active in retirement, not just through learning opportunities, but through fun group “field trips.”
“It’s for people who want to continue learning,” Leise said. “I know people who are afraid to retire because they say they won’t know what to do. There’s so much you can do after retiring.”
Helen Schubert, of West Sunbury, said she took classes with the institute the first year it started, which was around 2002. She explained that the institute was started during the tenure of SRU president G. Warren Smith, who hosted “lunch and lecture” sessions for the community at large.
Through those sessions, the university began offering more open-ended classes taught by community members and some university staff, which would eventually become the Institute for Learning in Retirement.
Now in her 90s, Schubert continues to take classes with the institute, because it gives her a chance to academically engage with topics alongside other people. Having an in with a book club helps her stay active in reading as well.
“I used to take 20 classes, now I just take a few,” Schubert said. “I was a good student. My favorite class was book club because I’m a reader.”
Some of the classes being offered this semester through the institute include “Animals’ behavior,” “Civil War medicine,” Functional fitness” and “Stress management through vagus nerve awareness.”
The institute also is offering dozens of trips this semester, to places like Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Harmony Museum and University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning; and some teachers are even offering bike rides and hikes.
Jan Berg, a member of the institute’s board, said members of the organization can submit proposals for classes and trips each semester, which the board then reviews to decide what classes will be offered. Classes can take place over several sessions or just one session; and the trips are usually one-offs.
According to Leise, some classes are offered pretty much every year, but others take breaks between semesters or years, so they become fresh again when they show back up in the institute’s rotation.
Rich Thornhill, vice president of the board, who leads hikes and bike rides, said the trips are popular, because some of them are more like group hangouts in fun spots.
“We even have a class where people are going to go out to fish fries,” he said. “They have another class, ‘Out to Lunch,’ (where) they go out to all kinds of different restaurants.”
Mary Alice Cobbett, of Butler, attended the open house Friday, Feb. 7, after taking the institute’s classes in the past. She said the organization helps form groups that make learning — and traveling to locales — a little more enjoyable.
“We have fun here — a lot of fun and camaraderie,” Cobbett said.
Classes through the institute kick off in March, and the semester lasts until mid-June. Andy Johnson, publicity chairman for the Institute for Learning in Retirement, said there is no deadline to sign up for a class, so long as it is still running when an individual signs up.
Johnson is part of a ukulele-teaching team, which will lead sessions in demonstrating how to play the four-stringed instrument.
“We’re doing that because any time you see someone playing a ukulele, they will always be smiling,” Johnson said.
Classes range in cost, depending on the course — from $15 to $58. Thornhill explained that classes are able to be offered at a relatively low price because Slippery Rock University lets the institute use its Fowler Building, and all its staff, aside from the institute’s executive director, are volunteers.
“That’s because it was professors at the beginning, and now it’s more outside people than inside people,” Thornhill said of the institute’s teaching staff. “(SRU) even gave us an intern to try to help improve our website.”
More information on the institute is available on its website at ilretirement.org. The website provides a list of classes for each semester, and enrollment information.
Steve Cicero, a past president of the institute’s board of directors, said, while looking at the class list at the open house, that the institute’s offerings are well-rounded, and it likely has something for everyone.
“If you can’t find something interesting in this catalog, then I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you,” Cicero said.
