Coordinator:  Ron Osajima - ronosajima@gmail.com

The OLLI – California State University at Fullerton (CSUF) Collaboration is an outcome of the OLLI Long Range Plan prepared in 2009. One of the strategies recommended in the plan was to “Support the emerging societal model of retirement (as a time to give back to society), by providing more volunteer opportunities within the CSUF community.”  The objective of the OLLI-CSUF Collaboration is to enable more OLLI members to share their life and work skills and knowledge with CSUF students and faculty.   

The collaboration began in late 2009.  Results for calendar years 2010 and 2011 show that participation in the collaboration is increasing.  The number of projects in 2011 (41) was double those in 2010 (20). (A collaboration project is a specific volunteer opportunity and ranges in scope from a single classroom lecture by one OLLI member to semester-long activities such as a group of OLLI members serving as writing tutors for nursing students or as mentors for teams of business students.) The number of OLLI members participating in projects by project type increased from 82 in 2010 to 182 in 2011.  It looks as if these numbers will increase again in 2012. 

Collaboration projects include giving lectures, serving as mentors to teams of students, tutoring individual students, consulting, discussing life and work experiences with groups of students, and serving as test subjects for research projects.  Some examples of individual projects are:

• In the College of Business and Economics, OLLI mentors work with student teams on consulting projects with local area businesses. “Mentors are an invaluable and integral part of the student’s learning and we get very positive feedback from our clients” according to Professor Brent Evans, one of the Business College instructors.
• In the School of Nursing, OLLI writing tutors help students improve their reports by providing one-on-one reviews and tutoring sessions.  Professor Chris Latham, leader of the writing tutors program, said that the students’ writing skills improved dramatically and the feedback from students was uniformly positive; all tutors scored four on a scale of one to four.
• Although most of the collaborations are with college students, Alice Gresto, a retired elementary school teacher, volunteered after she read about the need for tutors in local schools in OLLI’s monthly newsletter. She was delighted and surprised when she was assigned to the school where she had done her intern teaching 35 years ago.  Alice said that working with the third grade teacher and the children “returned me to the delight I had during my teaching career without all the politics, clerical work and worry.”
• The American Language Program (ALP) of CSUF under the direction of Rhona Genzel prepares foreign students to attend college in the U.S.  ALP collaborated with OLLI so that Americans with knowledge of a variety of subjects and life experiences within the framework of American culture, could share their wisdom with some of the more than 300 foreign students from around the world who are enrolled in the ALP. 

Feedback from OLLI members and CSUF students and faculty has been very positive.  OLLI members enjoy the intellectual stimulation of working with students and faculty and the opportunity to remain productive by giving back to the CSUF community.  Students benefit from hearing from people who have “been there and done that”.  And they often begin to see older people in a new light.  As one geriatric nursing student put it “I now realize there is life after 60”!! 

Please check the weekly OLLI newsbytes or contact a member of the OLLI – CSUF Collaboration Committee if you’d like to learn about current collaboration opportunities.  Committee members and their email addresses are:

• David Fromson – dfromson@fullerton.edu
• Jane Moon – mfmoon2002@yahoo.com
• Ron Osajima – ronosajima@gmail.com
• Ellie Page – ellievpage@yahoo.com
• Bill Pedler –billpedler8@gmail.com
• Nancy Spencer – njanespencer@sbcglobal.net