Doug Blanchard teaches a class about Michelangelo at NYU’s Midtown Center for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Ongoing With Osher
A philanthropist’s golden touch benefits older students from Maine to Hawaii.
By Trudy Whitman
What is the relationship of Islam to democracy? What conditions in Europe gave rise to the Age of Napoleon? How do you send blind carbon-copy e-mails? Judging by the courses in which he has enrolled, David Murray, a 65-year-old retired nurse anesthetist from Maine, could probably answer all of these questions – and much more. Since 2001, Mr. Murray has been a student at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine, one of 73 Osher programs across the country geared to non-matriculating older learners. David Murray also sings with an OLLI choral group and is a member of a drama club called the Senior Players, as well as a puppet-opera group formed by one of USM’s professors.
“We took our puppet opera all around, including to Boston,” Mr. Murray notes. “And we were invited to a conference in Philadelphia to demonstrate what we were doing.”
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes are funded by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Based in San Francisco, it was created in 1977 to support education and the arts. In addition to the Lifelong Learning Institutes now operating on college and university campuses from Maine to Hawaii, the foundation backs scholarships for higher education and for university-reentry students aged 25 to 50; integrative medicine programs; and arts, cultural, and educational programs in California and Maine.
Bernard A. Osher is a self-made millionaire and financier listed in Forbes magazine as one of the 400 wealthiest people in America. Born in 1927 in Biddeford, Maine, Mr. Osher began his successful career with the management of his family’s hardware and plumbing-supplies store. He worked at Oppenheimer & Company in New York City before moving to California, where he became a founding director of World Savings, one of the largest such institutions in the country. A collector of American paintings of the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, Mr. Osher purchased the auction house of Butterfield & Butterfield in 1970, and built it into the fourth largest business of its kind in the world. According to Forbes.com, in 1999 Mr. Osher was planning to take Butterfield public but decided instead to sell to the online auction company eBay for $260 million in stock. (Asked about the philanthropist’s age and if he had retired or was still working, Dr. Mary Bitterman, president of the Osher Foundation, replied that “he is probably best described as ageless and not the retiring type.”)
Bernard Osher is the type of man who recognizes voids and then busies himself filling them, as does his wife Barbro Osher, consul general for Sweden in San Fransisco. Take OLLI at USM: When the program began in 1997, the school expected perhaps 50 or 60 people to sign up for courses; they underestimated – 300 seniors wanted to participate. Now there are nearly 1,000. And USM houses the coordinating office of a larger network of 15 Maine Senior Colleges, where about 4,000 people regularly attend classes.
OLLI’s enthusiastic reception in Maine was mirrored this past September at New York University’s School of Continuing Education. Three hundred and seventy-five people eagerly registered for a series of non-credit daytime courses, lectures by NYU faculty and prominent journalists, career seminars, and social and networking events. These were offered for the first time at NYU through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes.
“It was a phenomenal response,” says the school’s Ken Brown. “We have a waiting list of 200, and we’re working hard to expand the program for the spring.”
It should be noted, says Osher Foundation President, Dr. Bitterman, that the Oshers were influenced by the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Fransisco: “Established more than 30 years ago, Fromm was a fine example of an excellent educational program for older learners and it inspired the Oshers to undertake this special philanthropic pursuit with lifelong learning.”
How similar is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes’ philosophy to the Fromm Elderhostel program? Similar indeed, says Dr. Bitterman, “but with distinctive differences. The Elderhostel program is an educational travel program, and its great strength is in having its participants study subjects ‘in situ’ – for example, studying Civil War history at Gettysburg. The Osher Institutes are ongoing educational programs that promote a community of learning and personal relationships that extend and develop over time.”
Although the Osher Foundation encourages each of its member institutions to develop a model best suited to the needs and interests of its community, grants are allotted in a similar way to each school. Gifts of up to $100,000 a year, for up to three years, are offered to develop and implement lifelong learning programs. Upon demonstrated success, the foundation will consider establishing support endowments of at least $1 million. For senior learning programs that are already established, endowment grants might be made earlier.
In addition to Osher Foundation support, the institutes are sustained by in-kind support from the host university — donations of office and classroom space, assistance with accounting, marketing, etc.; member fees; and backing from other foundations and corporate entities.
Numbers count. The foundation looks for enrollment of at least 100 members by the end of the first year; 200-plus by the end of the second year; close to 500 by the end of the third year.
“While we initially thought a membership of 300 might be a sound reference point for endowment consideration,” Dr. Bitterman says, “experience has shown us that unless a program has a substantial number of members, it is difficult to achieve true success and sustainability.”
As with USM and NYU, many of the participating colleges seem to be grappling with too many rather than too few OLLI students. In the Maine school, classes can be held only on Fridays because of a lack of space. But USM has applied for state funding to construct a building dedicated to the instruction of older learners. If the state money materializes, the Osher Foundation has promised additional cash for the building.
“Then we’ll start a campaign to raise a few extra dollars,” says USM student David Murray confidently, “and we’ll see if we can get our building up in the next two or three years.”
One way that OLLI at USM keeps down the budget is by writing absolutely no checks to its professors. All are volunteers who find it refreshing to interact with enthusiastic older students.
“I’m amazed every week when I go to class,” says Mr. Murray. “My fellow students are in their 70s, 80s, even their 90s, and they can’t wait to get to their next class. OLLI is a tremendous program.”
