Learning is lifelong at Butler County Community College
BUTLER TWP — Students walked through Butler County Community College’s main campus on Tuesday evening, March 18, to attend classes including American Sign Language and guitar for beginners taught by people proficient in those fields.
These were not your typical college students, however, because they were going to the classes that did not have grades or offered any college credits — they were going to learn a new skill through the college’s Lifelong Learning program.
Classes available through Lifelong Learning at BC3 are as varied as classes for credit programs at the college, leading Paul Lucas, director of Lifelong Learning, to call the program an extension of the college’s community-based mission.
“The other thing is because we’re community-based, we offer classes in the community,” Lucas said. “We offer them in churches, public schools, vocational and technical schools, public libraries, Butler Area Vocational-Technical School.”
The Lifelong Learning program operates on a semester schedule, similar to the schedule the for-credit classes work with. The course list is released about a month before classes are scheduled to start, and each includes the number of classes per course and each course’s cost.
Dustin and Dena Albert, a married couple living in Saxonburg, took the Guitar for Beginners class in the spring semester, where they each said they look forward to the release of the next semester’s course list.
“I like the variety of classes,” Dena Albert said. “Every time the book comes out we’re looking through it.”
According to Lucas, there were 900 enrollments — one person can enroll for several seats — in Lifelong Learning courses in the 2023-24 year. The program currently employs 50 part-time instructors, who are each chosen after pitching a class to Lucas and the Lifelong Learning department.
Lucas said that unlike professors in BC3 credit programs, Lifelong Learning instructors don’t necessarily need degrees to teach the classes they pitch. The administrators of the department, Lucas said, look at their experience and plan, and look for people who are “passionate about their topic.”
“They are also very well trained and experts in their field,” Lucas said. “Many of our instructors also teach multiple classes.”
Karen Thompson has been teaching American Sign Language for Lifelong Learning for years, and Lucas said her class also has been consistently popular. Thompson has taught ASL for years — as a hearing sister of a deaf person — and started teaching for BC3 after learning that there were barely any certified sign interpreters in Butler County.
Through Lifelong Learning, Thompson is able to gear her class toward the people in the class, who may be taking the course for a multitude of reasons.
“In Butler County, they told me there were 100 deaf people and only one certified interpreter,” Thompson said. “The people who usually take my class, it’s veterans or elderly people who are losing their hearing. Lots of times it’s family members who have someone in their family who may not be deaf but have autism and use sign language.”
In addition to teaching people in the class the alphabet in sign language, Thompson also discusses deaf culture and the stories of people going through life deaf. She said this is important for understanding the language, and the ways people express themselves through it.
“A big part of learning sign language is learning the culture,” Thompson said. “A lot of people think we take English words and just put signs to it — it’s not. It is a certified foreign language, the most popular third to English and Spanish.”
Also unlike credit courses, people can take Lifelong Learning classes as many times as they want, since there is no pass or fail. Thompson said people who take her class a second or third time can build up their sign language knowledge, because of the way she builds her course around the students in it.
One of the multi-passionate instructors for the program is Dave Smith, who in the spring semester taught the guitar for beginners class for the first time, as well as a small engine repair class, which he has led for a few years at BC3.
Smith’s small engine repair class is meant to be an introduction to fixing issues with engines, and he encourages people who take the class to bring their own machines so they can fix them on their own in class time. The class has become pretty popular because of the utility people find in learning to fix their own machines.
The popularity of the class could lead Smith to start another class focused on different types of engine repair, he said.
“I plan on trying to do an advanced class where we rebuild engines, carburetors, tractors — doing a little more of that heavier repair instead of just basic repairs,” Smith said.
He took up the guitar class this year after a request from Lucas. He said that he, himself, is no virtuoso, but simply wants to teach people the basics of how to play the instrument, to the point where they can play one of their favorite songs by the end of the class.
“I want them to pick up a guitar and learn some chords. We’re going to go over some basic strumming, use three chords, six chords, whatever,” Smith said. Simple little songs. From there they have that basic knowledge to tune a guitar, pick it up, play a few songs with it.”
Several people in Smith’s guitar class Tuesday evening, March 18, said they had wanted to learn to play the instrument for a long time, and found the accessibility of a BC3 class to be a good opportunity to pick it up.
People in the class, like Josh Klotz, of Saxonburg, said the Lifelong Learning program at BC3 has allowed him to learn a few skills, like guitar and the basics of American Sign Language.
“It’s going slow, but my brother bought me one, so I figured I would try to get into it,” Klotz said.
While many people in Smith’s guitar class brought their own guitars to campus, Smith also brought a couple guitars each time, in case someone needed one to play. Lucas said this is the case for several of the college’s Lifelong Learning classes — students may not even need their own equipment to try a class like guitar or even kayaking or beekeeping. And some of the classes go for as low as $35, so the bar for entry is relatively low.
“This is a great way to try out a new hobby. They are reasonably priced and you can save money,” Lucas said. “Some of our instructors provide materials for students, so they don’t have to provide it up front when they are just dipping a toe into a hobby.”
Lifelong Learning at BC3 was originally called Continuing Education, and Lucas said the program now includes the college’s adult literacy program and Kids on Campus.
Lucas added that some courses offered through Lifelong Learning have become credit courses.
“They initially started doing massage therapy in Continuing Education, and it got more and more popular and it became a certificate on the credit side,” Lucas said. “It’s kind of helped build the college. The person who developed this program developed public safety, and then public safety became a (college) department.”
Many of the Lifelong Learning classes take place in the evenings, which not only allow the instructors to teach part-time after working full-time jobs, but allows for people to take the classes around their own full-time work. Lucas pointed out that many of the people who enroll in the classes are retirees, but many 20- to 50-year-olds also enroll in classes.
Smith’s guitar class was comprised of people of all ages, who each wanted to pick up a new skill. He said that although the students in the course are not technically college students, they are having experiences similar to a traditional college experience.
“Students are all interacting with other people, becoming friends,” Smith said, “older individuals who are retired, men, women, all ages coming together to grasp mechanical knowledge.”
Klotz is a regular student of Lifelong Learning at BC3, and said he would recommend pretty much every class he has taken, from guitar to ASL to kayaking.
Dustin Albert said the courses provide introductions into what could become new hobbies or interests.
“That’s the goal, to always find something to do,” he said.
For more information on BC3’s Lifelong Learning offerings, visit bc3.edu/programs-classes/lifelong-learning.
