Upcoming Event: Global Aging--Emerging Issues

The little private Catholic university where I teach, Marylhurst University, is celebrating homecoming all next week, October 13-18, 2009. At a place like Marylhurst, which is a non-residential university that serves primarily adult learners, and a university which has re-invented itself many times in its long history under the watchful eye of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, homecoming is a very fascinating event--we don't have sports teams, or a marching band, or a school dance, and our alumni are very diverse in most ways, especially generationally. What we do have to offer during homecoming are many interesting educational presentations and events sponsored by various departments.

I wanted to let readers of this blog know about one event in particular, a panel presentation with three of my colleagues who do great work at other educational/advocacy organizations in Oregon and whom I consider to be important partners in the realm of Gerontological work.

Here are the details:

The event is on Friday, October 16th, 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. in the Old Library on the Marylhurst campus. Our focus? Emerging issues at the local, national and global levels related to aging and later life. The panelists? Dr. Margaret Neal, Ph.D., Director of the Institute on Aging at Portland State University (she'll be talking about her work around urban planning and age-friendly communities); Dr. Jan Abushakra, Ph.D., Coordinator of the Gerontology program at Portland Community College-Sylvania (she'll be talking about her work around older learners and career retooling); and Jerry Cohen, J.D., Director of Oregon-AARP (he'll be talking about AARP's current initiatives around health care for all). I'll be the panel organizer and discussant.

My hope is that we'll have an interesting, rich collaborative conversation about how the issues we work to address at the local and national level are connected to larger global trends. It would be cool, as well, to talk about whether and if gerontology as we do it in the U.S. has relevance for other places on the planet....we'll see if we get to talk about this!

The event is free-of-charge but if you're local and would like to come, please do RSVP.

For more information: http://www.marylhurst.edu/alumni/alumniweek2009.php