VU program offers retirees intellectual calisthenics
By Carolyn Thompson
Diversity Institute Fellow
03.30.06
After 40 years of teaching and coaching, Howard Suiter retired in 2003 to a cabin on a small lake in Clarksville.
Suiter, 65, soon grew tired of counting ducks and wanted to do something more.
So he enrolled in Retirement Learning at Vanderbilt University, which offers classes to retirees from engineering, medical, business and other fields. He sat in a leadership class Thursday with about 60 classmates.
“For the first time ever, I have the opportunity to take only the classes I want,” he said. “The instruction is so good.”
Suiter’s 40-mile drive from Clarksville for four classes each quarter testifies to his dedication, and he is among a growing number of retirees who are returning to school not for degrees, but for mental stimulation. More and more seniors are living longer and want their minds to be as fit as their bodies.
“It’s important to keep their minds exercised to prevent dementia and mental decline,” said Norma Clippard, director of Retirement Learning.
The program, now in its tenth year, has grown in class size and subject selections, such as aging and society, Islamic arts, foreign policy, Edgar Allen Poe and the Web. Students can take up to four courses each quarter for a flat fee of $80. Scholarship assistance is available.
Clippard said it is easy to get teachers to teach the classes because they enjoy them as much as the students.
The teachers are active and retired Vanderbilt professors, along with other community experts, such as Michael Bess, who taught World War II last quarter, Clippard said. Bess, she added, was able to talk to several war veterans in the class, which made him enjoy teaching it even more.
Albert Reeves, 78, praised the Vanderbilt program for its broad appeal because he found 99 percent of most other efforts directed to seniors focus on arts and crafts.
“When I learn something new in the class, I think: ‘Golly, I wish I knew that all my life,’” said Reeves, who is also president of the board of directors. “It’s amazing what I learn.”
Reeves, who has been married 55 years to his wife Marjorie, retired in 1988 from a court-reporting job, and he was among the first students to enroll in Retirement Learning.
Another student, Jim Charlét, 65, retired three times from the newspaper, government and military industries. He said the classes keep him intellectually sharp.
Clippard said most of the Retirement Learning students are Vanderbilt graduates, but there are no restrictions for participation. The curriculum committee, headed by Nancy Ransom, selects the 75-minute classes that vary from quarter to quarter.
“We bring new people, lose people because of sickness or ill health, but rarely from a lack of interest,” Clippard said.