SENIORS: Leaving their mark at City College

BY DELICIA HEGWOOD
Contributing Writer

PHOTOS BY ANTONELLA FABIANI

Josefina Urbizu moves, almost floats, her delicate hands through the air like ribbon. Finally they rest (left hand slanted just above the right), perfectly steady. Urbizu looks over at her instructor, Garrett Chinn, who offers a brief nod.

Urbizu, a 63-year old Tai Chi student enrolled in one of City College's courses designed especially for older adults, has been practicing for weeks the Tai Chi postures she first learned in Chinn's class last spring. Chinn's nod of approval is like getting an A on a midterm. More importantly, it's like getting a mark of good health.

Life-long learning contributes to greater well being, particularly for older adults. According to the American Society on Aging, older adults who main-tain an active life also have less of a risk of dementia and heart disease, and are better able to maintain important cognitive and social skills.

More than ever, seniors are active peo-ple. But decreasing social and city services make finding local programs (the clos-er, the better) and activities specially de-signed for senior learners a real challenge.

But then there was City College's Old-er Adults department (OLAD). Over the last three decades, OLAD has been through a series of iterations, and today serves 3,000 older adult learners in 41 locations throughout the city, to the great appreciation of seniors like Shirley Cottonham, a 67-year-old retiree and OLAD computer student.

“I got a new computer so I could keep up with everybody and do things for myself. But every time I wanted to do anything on it, I needed someone to come do it for me,” Cottonham said.

When City College opened its Southeast campus just a few blocks from Cottonham's house, she felt very grateful. Cottonham had already taken a computer class at City College's Ocean campus, but getting to and from campus (especially at night), negotiating dog-eat-dog parking, and trying to match the energy of younger students discouraged her.

“I think it's delightful that they put a campus right here in our neighborhood,” says Cottonham, searching the web. “Now I can go online anytime I want.”

Seniors are, in fact, the largest growing segment of Internet users, up 47 percent since 2000, and according to SeniorNet, the number one activity of online seniors is staying in touch with community.

As seniors age, they find their social world shrinking, leaving many of them in isolation, often creating loneliness and depression. Older adults are an often-ignored population, particularly on a majority youth campus. Being able to socialize with other students their own age is another benefit of OLAD courses.

“It's very depressing to know that you have all this knowledge, but no one wants to use it,” says Wood Massi, OLAD department chair. “It's a great loss for the individual who has the know-ledge and no way to make use of it and it's a great loss to the individual who will never benefit from the knowledge.”

Teaching seniors new skills and keep-ing them up to speed allows them to continue to contribute and stay connected to the larger community.

But being the sole senior in a class full of recent high school grads is not always the most conducive learning environment for an older adult.

“It's so nice to have classes just for older adults; the teachers are so patient. They really accommodate a little slower speed for us. You know, for people with arthritis or who don't understand all the technical stuff as fast as young folks,” Cottonham said. “This is the second time I've taken this class, and this time around it's 200 percent better.”

Several Older Adult Learning in-structors note that OLAD's success is, in part, a result of the department's commitment to bring the classes and the materials to the seniors where they live. Students are less likely to drop out and are more likely to be engaged in their learning.

Like every other City College community, OLAD has suffered its share of budget cuts, so plans to expand the program progress in slow motion. Meanwhile, OLAD students and teachers attempt to get as much out of the program as they can.

“I enjoy this population,” said Di-anne Romaine who teaches art to seniors at the North & South Market Adult Day Health Center. “So much has been tak-en away from them, but learning some-thing new cannot be taken away from them and they are so appreciative. It's rewarding for them, but it's even more rewarding for me.”