Lori Walsh: Older adults are at high risk of serious complications from COVID-19 so many are staying at home during the pandemic. But staying at home doesn't need to mean stagnating. Thea Miller Ryan, director of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USD joins us for a look at learning during these complicated times.
Thea, welcome. Thanks for being here. Thea Miller Ryan, welcome to the program.
Thea Miller Ryan: Thanks for having me.
Lori Walsh: How long have you been the director of OLLI? It's not been that long, has it?
Thea Miller Ryan: No, not very long. About nine months. After 25 years at my old job, this has been a big change for me. But I'm learning quickly and learning the hard way I think during this crazy time.
Lori Walsh: I want to start with that because you're in this leadership position, you're enthusiastic about it, you're taking over this really healthy organization where people have expectations about what learning is like and the programs that OLLI will offer. And then all of a sudden, "Hi, would you like to rethink everything," and to do it in an entirely different way? Tell me a little bit about the work that OLLI does and some of the challenges of bringing that into a new pandemic-laced world.
Thea Miller Ryan: Okay. Well first of all, OLLI is the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. There are 124 of them throughout the nation and they were all started by the Bernard Osher Foundation. In South Dakota, we have, oh, just under a thousand members and we meet in four different towns, so Sioux Falls, Pierre, Brookings and Vermillion.
And in each of the towns, for two semesters a year, we have a really amazing slate of classes. The classes cover everything from science and technology to the arts, to history, things that will expand your mind and just things that people absolutely love. And the coolest part all of it, OLLI all together, is that it provides a social network for seniors. People over 50, we call seniors.
This provides a space for us to go and a place for us to learn. For so many years, I just longed to go back to college, and every time I see a college catalog from my daughter I'd be like, "Oh, why can't I take that class?" Well, you can through OLLI. You join as a member and we offer classes that are college-like classes, but they're noncredit and we don't offer tests. You can learn all this incredible stuff from real college professors and people who are passionate about their topic, and there's no tests. It's just the best parts of college.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, and one of the things I remember from teaching at OLLI, because I did a few classes in the past, was just really understanding how adults learn. Because you're not teaching to a test, you're not really measured by the grades of your students, these are people who really need to be active and involved and have many questions. It's different than going into a high school classroom in the sense that there can be different expectations here. Which brings us to the point of how do you do that now because it's anything but passive? It's a very active... And certainly high school teachers are having the same problem with that interactivity and that back and forth. How is OLLI including that in the model?
Thea Miller Ryan: Well, right away when all of this started, the Osher Foundation sent out a note and said, "Or biggest concern is not that you're going to have all the classes that you usually have or that we continue doing our educational mission. Our biggest concern is that seniors don't feel isolated." That kind of changed what we're working on. Now, I'm still working on a fall schedule. I'm still trying to pull together some Zoom programs and Zoom has been a big learning curve.
But one of the things that we've been doing is creating these online virtual coffee talks. And so if you can get on Zoom, you can come to one of our coffee talks. And sometimes we just talk and everybody drinks a cup of coffee. You have 25 people on your screen and you have to take turns and not talk over each other, which is kind of hard. But other times, we have topics. Last week, we had a really fun one. We did hometown history. People came online and we said, "Tell us one story about your hometown." And those stories turned into some absolutely incredible things. They told stories about-
Lori Walsh: Wow.
Thea Miller Ryan: Yeah, it was really fun. They told stories about, one guy was from Manitowoc, Wisconsin and apparently a piece of Sputnik fell there. It was a long time ago, and now they have Sputnik Fest every year and people dress up like aliens and they have parades. There's just all kinds of really fun stories. Stories about the town policemen was also the school janitor, and just wonderful warm stories. But it's a way to keep everybody active and not isolated.
Lori Walsh: Why is that important right now? Because as we move on toward more and more people going out and doing things, whether it's getting takeout or whether it's a restaurant that's open and has a reduced occupancy, many of the people who are older are possibly left out of that equation because they have to take greater precautions or they choose to make greater precautions. Or they're asked, especially in an area where there's significant community spread like Minnehaha County, they're asking me to stay home by the governor and reminded how dangerous this can be for them. Why is it more important now more than ever to sort of keep your mind activated in that way and keep connected?
Thea Miller Ryan: We all crave that. We all crave connections. Even if you're an introvert, you still want to see people once in a while. You still need the touch of a human hand on your shoulder, something like that. It's just important and a basic need of all human beings. And seniors, I feel really, really worried about the people who are in nursing homes and who are not able to see their relatives. The people that I get to work with are mostly out and about in the community. Most of them are staying home. They're doing it not just for themselves, but also that they could be a carrier of this. And they're wearing masks if they have to go to the grocery store. They're going early during the senior hours.
It's important for them to still be a part of a community and a family and have friends just like the rest of us. They're amazing people. I have learned and met so many neat people, and there are some that I don't know if I would have met if this hadn't happened. We have a lot of members statewide and some of them... I have a kind of a pen pal in one of them and I probably never would have met her. She lives in Bruce, South Dakota.
Lori Walsh: Yeah. Some of the students are really some of the intellectual luminaries of the state of South Dakota as well. I remember the first class I went in to teach and I thought, "Uh-oh, these are people with PhDs and they're far more educated than I than I am and I'm about to do it writing class for them." It is this idea that very often... And there's courses of all levels as well if you're just looking for something entry level where you can kind of sit and listen. But this is a rigorous, intellectual gathering at times, in a really positive way.
Tell us a little bit about how people can sign up and learn more about the classes that are coming as we look ahead to the days and say, "Yeah, I think I'm ready to bring that into my life." What will it look like?
Thea Miller Ryan: Sure. Well, there's a couple of ways. It might look a little different in the near future, and whether that stays with us or not, we don't know. But we are going to be offering more classes on Zoom, which I think will attract people hopefully from Rapid City and other parts of our state that we're not in. But we're hoping, of course, that our normal way of working is going to work also. We plan to hold in-person classes in, like I said Sioux Falls, Vermilion, Brookings and Pierre.
And to sign up for those classes, you just become a member of OLLI. And memberships differ depending on the class, differs depending on the town that you're in. We are able to offer a lot more classes in Brookings, Sioux Falls and Vermilion simply because of the universities being there. There's a different charge for each town. But the best way to find out about that and to sign up is to go to our website. We sit right now currently at the University of South Dakota, so it's usd.edu/olli. That'll take you right to our website where you can learn everything you want to know.
And if you want to teach something, Lori, I would love to have you back as an instructor. Do you want to do Zoom?
Lori Walsh: Sure. We'll do some Zoom writing. It'll be fun. Thea Miller Ryan, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time.
Thea Miller Ryan: Thank you so much. You take care.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, you too. We'll see you next time.
Thea Miller Ryan: All right.