Creating an Age-Diverse University
WashU is a member of the Age-Friendly University Global Network, a group of educational institutions committed to expanding programs and policies to engage people in all life stages. Universities in the network help develop innovations in education, research, and community engagement in order to increase age-diversity on campus, improve multi-generational learning environments, and create opportunities for career development across a longer life course. As part of its Age-Friendly University work, the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging has created a new initiative, WashU for Life, to become a comprehensive age-integrated research university.
Vision
WashU will engage and educate people of all ages.
Age-diversity will be a valued feature of our campus and our culture.
Later life will be viewed as a time of active engagement, learning, and purpose as opposed to current perceptions of stepping back and diminishing relevance.
Facilitated by the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at the Institute for Public Health and with the help of an advisory committee, WashU for Life has the following aims:
Aim One: Create opportunities for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members to engage in education throughout the life course through new and existing classes, degree/certificate programs, and campus seminars/lectures.
Aim Two: Build skills among faculty, staff, and students to thrive in multigenerational teaching, work, and community environments.
Aim Three: Institutionalize programs that facilitate transitions between jobs and into retirement, with focus on ongoing purpose and meaningful engagement.
Aim Four: Conduct research on multigenerational education, age-stereotype in academia, and educational pathways for longer life course.
- Organize existing data to understand current age distributions on campus
- Conduct pilot research on multigenerational classroom
- Conduct focus groups with admissions staff and career services staff across Wash U
- Pilot retirement transition program with Human Resources
- Design Gateway to Engagement Program to facilitate greater involvement of alums and older community members with current University offerings
- Support Next Move students at the Brown School and discuss replication with Law and Business Schools
- Expand intergenerational housing programs that have been launched
- Connect to and brainstorm with Washington University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion
- Teaching center curriculum on age-diverse classroom
- Recruitment efforts more age-inclusive
- Career transition and retirement programs for faculty and staff, midcareer and beyond
- Leadership and certificate programs targeted toward mid- to later-life adults
- Multigenerational residential options
For more information, read Making the Case for Age-Diverse Universities in The Gerontologist by Nancy Morrow-Howell, et al.
What success of WashU for Life would look like
There are more mid-life and older adults on campus, in degree and certificate programs, in lectures and events, at the Lifelong Learning Institute, and at the athletic facility. Student age distribution is not as skewed; more students are aged 30 and beyond. There are new programs, including new certificate programs, workshops and events that reach out to and serve mid-life and older adults. Faculty and staff access robust career and retirement transition programs. Communications highlight age diversity, and age diversity will be considered for representation in events, programs, etc. Instructors are competent in facilitating multigenerational classrooms. Younger and older students are comfortable with and appreciate what every learner brings to the community.
Why educate people across the longer life course and operate as an age-diverse institution?
- To ensure the capacity of individuals to work longer and move into different careers at any age.
- To teach students of all ages to succeed in age-diverse settings, to work and live with people across decades of age differences.
- To increase intergenerational interaction and confront age stereotypes that hamper younger and older people.
- To produce innovation in an aging society through solutions generated by age-integrated teams.
- To support meaningful engagement, social connection, and cognitive health into later life through lifelong learning.
- To ensure a large enough consumer group to maintain the vitality of the institution in the face of low birth rates.
WashU for Life programs
The Friedman Center for Aging partners with the Office of Human Resources at WashU to offer educational seminars designed to help employees consider transition to retirement. These sessions encourage participants to re-imagine retirement. Workshops address the When, Why and What of retirement, critical components (including purpose, leisure, social, health and wellness), and how to gather information, plan and enlist support around retirement decisions. A document with resources to support a purposeful retirement has also been developed to accompany these seminars.
This toolkit, Tools for Advancing Age Inclusivity in Higher Education, features WashU as an Age-Friendly University. It was published by the AARP, the Gerontological Society of America and the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education.
The Friedman Center has conducted multiple focus groups to learn about the challenges and opportunities of increasing age-diversity at WashU. Qualitative data on the current landscape of age-diversity at WashU and advantages and challenges associated with serving a wider range of ages have been collected from dozens of campus staff members and administrators.
Next Move is a group for MSW/MPH/MSP graduate students returning to school after substantial work/life experiences who are aiming to redefine, restart, or advance their careers. Meetings and events have included IT and Career services info sessions, support group sessions, happy hours, and alumni panels where former students discuss their experiences. A long-term goal is to launch Next Move student groups in other WashU colleges in addition to the Brown School.
The WashU for Life initiative seeks to engage and educate people across a wide range of ages as well as contribute to the body of research about multi-generational learning environments. There are currently two studies on multi-generational classrooms in progress. One is an on-going study conducted in affiliation with the undergraduate class, When I’m 64. This class enrolls approximately 75 first-year students and 15 older adults from the STL Village Network to learn about aging from an interdisciplinary perspective. The second project studies WashU undergraduate students enrolled in Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) courses. Both of these studies seek to gain a better understanding of the impact multigenerational classrooms have on learning.