OLLI at Penn State has much to offer for older people.
OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) is a volunteer-driven organization that provides mature adults educational and social enrichment opportunities.
In 1996, the Director of the Centre Region Senior Center, staff from the Penn State Gerontology Department, The Director of Penn State Continuing Education and some community minded folks met to plan a lifelong learning center for this area.
First named CALL — Community Academy for Lifelong Learning — it started by offering nine courses to 57 members. After receiving an Osher Grant, the name was changed to OLLI in 2007 and has received other grants since that time. OLLI has administrative space in the Outreach Building at Innovation Park and access to classrooms and meeting spaces.
So who can come to OLLI classes? Although OLLI promotes its programs to the over 50 crowd, anyone over the age of 18 may join. Membership in OLLI allows you to have discounts on trips that are offered and preferred placement, saves you money on theater performances, gives you advance notice through catalogues and newsletters of upcoming no-cost Penn State activities that are open to the public and allows you to enroll in OLLI courses (not open to non-members).
The upcoming fall schedule for OLLI classes has many interesting offerings for fun and enrichment:
- Introduction to ballroom dancing
- Healthy eating
- WWI: A Pilot’s Journey
- From Petticoats to PhDs: Women’s history at Penn State
- FEVER! The music and career of the incomparable Miss Peggy Lee
- Hand building in clay
- Healthy, affordable seasonal eating
- Holding the high ground: The Fight for Little Round Top at Gettysburg Model Railroading
- Cheese making, tasting, pairing and farm tour
- Downsizing the painless way
- Visit a traditional cider press
- Biking the Pine Creek Rail-to-Trail
- Climate Change: What can we do about it?
- The Road to modern rocketry
OLLI at Penn State Trip Committee has a list of fall trips, some of which are still ahead.
OLLI will make a trip to Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Those taking the trip will have a guide and see the Old Maryland State House, the historic streets of Old Towne Annapolis and the United States Naval Academy Grounds — including a line up of the cadets. That day will end with a boat ride on the Chesapeake.
Looking further ahead to winter of 2016, how about a trip to Costa Rica in February? What a get-a-way that could be! The group will leave from Harrisburg and spend two weeks in the warm sunny weather of Costa Rica.
As you can see from the courses listed above, there are offerings for men and women, trips and some social activities with OLLI. Some people join to meet people in groups that go out to dinner, or eat dinner and attend the theater together. There are many combinations and types of activities.
We are fortunate to have so many retired professors and teachers in all kinds of subjects. Want to learn about historic places? OLLI can do it. Want to learn to knit? There’s an OLLI session for that.
OLLI is always looking for volunteers and that is a great way to step up for your community and stay in the loop of what’s happening in Centre County.
To receive an OLLI catalog or information, call (814) 867-4278. For trip information you may call Judy Malick, Trip Committee Chair, at (814) 308-8193.
