External links
- The Bernard Osher Foundation
- OLLI National Resource Center
- List of Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes
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Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) offer noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to adults over age 50. Since 2001, philanthropist Bernard Osher has made grants from the Bernard Osher Foundation to launch OLLI programs at 120 universities and colleges throughout the United States. [1]
Bernard Osher, a native of Maine, managed the family hardware and plumbing supply business before heading to New York to work for Oppenheimer & Company. He moved to California and became a founding director of World Savings and a founder of its parent company Golden West Financial. He bought the San Francisco auction house Butterfield & Butterfield in 1970 and sold it in 1999 to eBay. World Savings merged with Wachovia Corporation in 2006, which was in turn acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008. In 1977 he established the Bernard Osher Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, which contributes to higher education, the arts, and social services, with education receiving nearly 80 percent of its grants. [2]
Osher was impressed by the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco, and approached the Senior Program at the University of Southern Maine (USM) with his interest in supporting noncredit programs for older adults. He awarded USM an endowment grant in 2001 to expand its program, which was renamed as the first Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. [3] Ed Stolman, a friend of Osher’s who had retired to Sonoma County, California, approached Sonoma State University (SSU) to encourage development of an OLLI program. [4] The Osher Foundation made a development grant to SSU which quickly attracted an audience of older student members. Encouraged by the success of these two programs, Osher decided to greatly expand his grant support for similar lifelong learning institutes.
In 2002 the Osher Foundation began making program development grants of $100,000 a year for up to three years to launch new OLLI programs. The initial focus was on California, which now has OLLI programs at seven University of California and 16 California State University campuses. In 2004 Osher established a National Resource Center at USM to distribute information about effective educational programs for older adults via a web site, a research journal, and an annual conference. In October 2014 the NRC was relocated to Northwestern University's downtown Chicago, Illinois campus. [5]
Under current practices, if an OLLI program has 500 fee-paying members by the end of its fourth year, the university is eligible for a $1 million endowment grant from the Osher Foundation. When it reaches 1000 members, it is eligible for another $1 million endowment grant. As of 2015, the Osher Foundation was supporting 120 OLLI programs at universities and colleges in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. [3]
The Bernard Osher Foundation’s executive director is Barbro Sachs-Osher. [6]
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The University of Southern Maine (USM) is a public university with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston in the U.S. state of Maine. It is the southernmost of the University of Maine System. It was founded as two separate state universities, Gorham Normal School and Portland University. The two universities, later known as Gorham State College and the University of Maine at Portland, were combined in 1970 to help streamline the public university system in Maine and eventually expanded by adding the Lewiston campus in 1988.
Sonoma State University is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 bachelor's degree programs, 19 master's degree programs, and 11 teaching credentials. The university is a Hispanic-serving institution.
Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. It is important for an individual's competitiveness and employability, but also enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development.
Gerald William Haslam was an author focused on rural and small towns in California's Great Central Valley including its poor and working-class people of all colors. A native of Oildale, California, Haslam has received numerous literary awards.
Ruben Armiñana is a political scientist who served as the sixth president of Sonoma State University from 1992 to 2016. He is the first Cuban-American to head a campus in the California State University system.
Mir Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American author and public speaker. He is the author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, West of Kabul, East of New York, and other books concerning Afghan and Muslim history. He was previously a columnist for the encyclopedia website Encarta.
Road Scholar is an American not-for-profit organization that provides educational travel programs primarily geared toward older adults. The organization is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. From its founding in 1975 until 2010, Road Scholar was known as Elderhostel. Road Scholar offers study tours throughout the United States and Canada and in approximately 150 other countries.
The Fairfield Osborn Preserve is a 450-acre nature reserve situated on the northwest flank of Sonoma Mountain in Sonoma County, California. There are eight plant communities within the property, oak woodland being the dominant type. Other communities include chaparral, Douglas fir woodland, native Bunch grass, freshwater marsh, vernal pool, pond and riparian woodland. The flora is extremely diverse including many native trees, shrubs, wildflowers, grasses, lichens and mosses. A diverse fauna inhabits this area including black-tailed deer, coyote, bobcat and an occasional mountain lion; moreover, there are abundant avifauna, amphibians, reptiles and insects.
Barbro Sachs-Osher is the Swedish Consul General in San Francisco and a well-known philanthropist, chair of the Bernard Osher Foundation and of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation.
David Walls is an activist and academic who has made significant contributions to Appalachian studies and to the popular understanding of social movements. He is professor emeritus of sociology at Sonoma State University (SSU) in California, where he was dean of extended education from 1984 to 2000.
Bernard Osher is an American businessman, best known for his work as a philanthropist.
The Foundation for California Community Colleges is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Sacramento, California. It was incorporated in 1998 by Dr. Larry Toy, the founding president and chief executive officer of the organization. The organization has an annual operating revenue of over $35 million. The Foundation's mission is to benefit, support, and enhance the California Community Colleges. It is the official foundation of the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and Board of Governors. The Foundation's Board of Directors is currently composed of eight individuals, each serving six-year terms. Members include Lance Izumi, Manuel Baca, James Sargen, Patricia Sullivan, Isabel Barreras, Mario Camara, Dan Noell, Alice Perez, and John Cena.
George Ledin, Jr. is an American computer scientist and professor of computer science at Sonoma State University. Ledin's teaching of computer security at Sonoma State has been controversial for its inclusion of material on how to write malware. Ledin is a strong critic of the antivirus software industry, whose products he considers almost useless. Ledin also helped found the computer science program at the University of San Francisco, and published several books on computing in the 1970s and 1980s.
Marion Osher Sandler was the co-CEO of Golden West Financial Corporation and World Savings Bank. In 2004, after 43 years running Golden West Financial Corporation, she was described by the Columbia School of Journalism as "the first and longest-serving woman chief executive officer in the United States."
The Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco (USF) offers noncredit courses with no assignments or grades for adults age 50 and over with no other objective than the love of learning. Organized in 1976 with support from Hanna and Alfred Fromm, the Institute’s program served as a model for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes that have been established at over 120 universities and colleges in the United States.
The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco, California. It has been characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one",. The participatory nature of its exhibits and its self-identification as a center for informal learning has led to it being cited as the prototype for participatory museums around the world.
Sanford Ned Diller was an American billionaire and the founder of Prometheus Real Estate Group.
Lisa Vollendorf is an American academic and current President of Empire State University, part of the State University of New York (SUNY). Previously she served as Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer at the University of Northern Colorado, and as Special Advisor for Academic Planning and Operational Continuity for the California State University system (2020–21), where she provided strategic support related to crisis management and longer-term continuity planning for the nation's largest four-year public education system.
A lifelong learning institute is an organized group of people over 50 years of age who meet frequently for college-level study just for its intellectual challenge and social enjoyment.. Unlike continuing education, career development is not an objective of a lifelong learning institute; no credit is earned from any sponsoring college or university. Hundreds of thousands of people over 50 now participate in this intellectual endeavor which did not exist before 1962.
Mary G. F. Bitterman is an American historian and former media executive. She currently serves as president of The Bernard Osher Foundation, a philanthropic organization headquartered in San Francisco that supports higher education and arts. She is a former director of the Voice of America and was the youngest person and the first female to hold that position.
