Higher education isn\u2019t only for those at the cusp of their careers, trying to establish themselves in a particular profession. Increasingly, older adults finished with their careers are interested returning to the classroom, and a university of Rhode Island professor recently served on a committee aimed at increasing age inclusivity at colleges and universities.<\/p>\n
Skye Leedahl<\/a>, an associate professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, recently served on an academic roundtable hosted by the AARP<\/a>, the largest interest group representing older adults in the country. The roundtable brought together experts from higher education institutions around the country to discuss creating \u201ca framework colleges and universities can use to make intergenerational communities of learning a priority.\u201d The participants brainstormed ways to make higher education more inclusive to older adults.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many cases, education has to be done differently for older adults,\u201d Leedahl said. \u201cTheir learning style is more incremental, more hands-on; it needs to be connected to what they want to learn. Just thinking let\u2019s just plunk older adults into our current classrooms would be a missed opportunity. I think it needs to be much more thoughtful about what their learning styles and preferences are.\u201d<\/p>\n In several breakout sessions during the October meeting in Washington, D.C., the group came up with new program ideas to increase options in higher education for older adults. Some potential offerings include an expansion of intergenerational programs like Cyber Seniors<\/a> \u2014 a program Leedahl and Pharmacy Professor Erica Estus<\/a> direct at URI \u2014 new certificate programs for older students who may not want to engage in a full degree program, and workforce retraining programs for those looking for a change after a long career.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the big things that was talked about was the first steps to make this all happen \u2014 how to communicate this to higher education administrators,\u201d Leedahl said. \u201cWe need to put together data and have a really solid presentation so higher education administrators get on board. Show them why these changes are needed.\u201d<\/p>\n One reason they are needed should appeal directly to higher education administrators \u2014 money. Colleges and universities across the country are bracing for a demographic cliff brought on during the Great Recession, when the birth rate in the country dropped significantly. The 2020s is shaping up to be a challenging decade for higher education, which will see fewer students of traditional college age than in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are predictions that some colleges and universities are going to have to shut down because they are going to have such lower enrollment in traditional age students that they won\u2019t be able to keep up. There\u2019s just not going to be enough students to keep everybody afloat, essentially,\u201d Leedahl said. \u201cWhen push comes to shove, what higher education needs is paying students. So if it\u2019s not going to be your traditional age students, then maybe it can be the older population in some way, shape or form.\u201d<\/p>\n Leedahl has a head start in engaging the older generation, having directed URI\u2019s Cyber Seniors program along with Estus. The pair sends students into the community to engage directly with older adults. Meeting weekly at senior centers and assisted living facilities in eight communities from Pawtucket to Narragansett, the students help teach technology to older adults. The clients often bring their devices to the students, asking for help in how to use them. Others want to learn how to use Facebook to communicate with friends and family, post a resume online and search for a new job, even develop a personal website or blog.<\/p>\n There is also a social component to the program as both parties get a lesson in intergenerational communication.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is great value for health and human services students by gaining these communication skills,\u201d Leedahl said. \u201cEventually, they\u2019re going to be walking them through how to get their benefits, talking about whether they should enroll in long-term care or should they be in assisted living. If they\u2019re able to communicate with an older person about technology, they can certainly help them later with some of these more difficult decisions. Like my pharmacy colleague says, if you can tell an older person how to use an iPhone, you can certainly explain Lipitor to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Cyber Seniors can also be a platform to prepare higher education for an influx of older adults.<\/p>\n \u201cHigher education institutions need to try to engage the baby boomer generation in higher education activities,\u201d Leedahl said. \u201cMaybe it isn\u2019t to start a new major; maybe it\u2019s to take a few classes. Maybe we need to come up with a new certificate program. We\u2019re trying to be creative in how we engage this population.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" URI professor serves on AARP roundtable to create framework for intergenerational education Higher education isn\u2019t only for those at the cusp of their careers, trying to establish themselves in a particular profession. Increasingly, older adults finished with their careers are interested returning to the classroom, and a university of Rhode Island professor recently served on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":7577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7580,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7574\/revisions\/7580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}