Temple’s lifelong education program inspires seniors to keep learning as it hits 50th birthday

The lecture on a recent afternoon at Temple University’s Center City campus was on passion and purpose and the importance both play in leading a happy, healthy life.

“I don’t care if you only have one day or one week to live,” instructor Adam Brunner, 66, told his class. “I would contend it would be far better spent doing what you are passionate about and doing it with a sense of purpose.”

For his students, many of them in their 60s and 70s, nurturing their passion for learning is at least part of what brought them to Brunner’s class, titled “Let’s Live as Long and Healthy As Possible.”

All are enrolled in Temple’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, where a main requirement for taking classes is being age 50 or older. The institute this year is, quite fittingly, celebrating its 50th anniversary at Temple.

The classes are not for credit. There are no exams or final papers. And the cost is minuscule compared with college tuition. Students can take as many classes as they want for an annual fee of $290; there are also less expensive options to take classes just in the spring, or fall, or summer.

“You’re never too old to learn, and you learn something new every day,” said Phyllis Sledge, a retired public assistance caseworker from Philadelphia.

Beside her in Brunner’s class was fellow retiree Sylvia Williams, who had spent 34 years working at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“I needed some structure after I retired, something to do to get myself out of the house,” she said.

For both women, it’s their second time at Temple. They got their bachelor’s degrees from the university decades ago.

Those who teach do it for free and find it just as fulfilling.

“I call it my encore career,” said James Pagliaro, who spent decades as a trial lawyer in Philadelphia, for a time leading the product liability division of Morgan Lewis & Bockius. “I have a passion for sharing my love of art with people.”

Pagliaro, 73, of Rydal, for the last 25 years also has worked as a docent at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and after retiring from the legal profession, he earned a master’s degree in art history from Oxford University. His art history classes typically attract 20 to 25 students in person and as many as 90 online.

Nancy McDonald, 72, of Philadelphia, was one of his students.

“It’s really enjoyable to learn more about the artists and their work from the research that Jim has done,” said McDonald, an adjunct professor at Wilmington University, who also has taken Osher classes on the law and creative writing.

McDonald, who spent much of her career at DuPont and Accenture, a technology consulting company, also teaches courses in information technology at the institute. Those who teach in the program can take classes for free.

“People can choose to take classes in areas they know about, or it’s an opportunity to take a class you don’t know a thing about,” said Lynn Marks, 76, a retired public interest lawyer who previously served as executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and Women Organized Against Rape.

Since 2017, she has taught a class called “Hot Topics in Justice and Law” — which Brunner said is one of the institute’s most popular, drawing about 300 students a semester.

Marks co-taught with Phyllis W. Beck, the first woman to sit on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and former vice dean of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, until two weeks before Beck’s death in March at 97. Their class on Zoom included panels of prominent speakers, with Beck and Marks using their ties to bring in former judges, politicians, scholars, and advocates, from former Gov. Ed Rendell to Jeffrey Rosen, CEO of the National Constitution Center, and Sister Mary Scullion, who founded and ran Project HOME.

Marks, who lives in Center City, said she will continue to teach the class on her own.

Beck was not the oldest instructor the institute has had. That distinction goes to Sol Glassberg, who taught until his death in 2023 at age 100, Brunner said.

Temple’s Osher program is part of a nationwide network. Other area colleges, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of Delaware, and Rutgers University, also have them.

At Penn State, nearly 2,000 students participate at sites in York, Harrisburg, and University Park, accounting for 18,500 course registrations in a year. More than 1,600 students are enrolled at Rutgers, which offers 158 courses throughout the year.

At Temple, more than 1,000 students participate over the course of a year, said Brunner, who has led Temple’s program for 16 years. At one time, close to 1,400 were enrolled — so many the program had to stop advertising because it could not accommodate more — but numbers fell during the pandemic when classes, all of which had been in person, had to go virtual. Students missed in-person interaction, he said.

Some classes have moved back in person, but there are instructors who prefer to teach from home. Brunner said he is hoping to boost participation again by piloting a new course delivery method in the fall, which will allow instructors teaching from home to be streamed into classrooms.

There are four full-time employees for the program, which runs on its own revenue and interest from its $2 million endowment, provided by the Bernard Osher Foundation. (Temple’s program predates its involvement with Osher — it originally was called the Temple Association for Retired Persons — and at that time its expenses were covered by membership revenue and the university.)

In addition to the classes, members get free access to Temple’s online library and access to “tech tutoring,” provided by Temple undergraduate and graduate students.

“You could schedule an appointment online with one of our Temple students,” Brunner said, “and you will get a one-on-one session for an hour. They can answer any questions you have about your computer or your smartphone.“

With fostering socialization among seniors as a goal, the institute also allows Osher members to start and run “shared interest” groups.

“You’re not a teacher, but you’re more like a facilitator, and then once you start it, we will advertise your shared interest group to all our members,” he said.

Those interested in teaching must submit their course proposals and resumés to a curriculum committee for review. The committee gauges whether would-be instructors are knowledgeable about the subject and able to manage an active group of learners. They don’t need to have teaching experience, or even a college degree, though most do.

“Teaching older students is radically different from teaching younger students,” Brunner said. “Typically, younger students are more reticent to ask questions or make comments.”

Older students may not be as shy and have more life experience, he said.

About 20 students attended Brunner’s class in person that afternoon, with more than a dozen watching virtually, including a group from a senior living community near Jenkintown.

Brunner discussed research that showed the physical and mental benefits of pursuing passion-driven activities and knowing one’s purpose.

He said that even if a person is bedridden, he or she could choose to lead a life of passion and purpose, possibly by smiling at everyone and calling loved ones to express all they have meant.

“If you did, I am certain that the quality of your life, whatever is remaining, would rise exponentially,” he told the class.

Sitting in the back, often with a pleasant smile on his face, was J.J. Broderick, 70, a retired real estate attorney from Northern Liberties who spent much of his career as senior partner at Morgan Lewis. His wife, Colleen Broderick, suggested he take the Temple courses after he was diagnosed a couple years ago with primary progressive aphasia, a neurological condition that impairs the ability to speak, understand, read, and write.

Broderick, who got his undergraduate degree from Yale and law degree from the University of Texas, struggles with speech but still can understand, read, and write, his wife said. He enrolled in the classes last fall, she said, and has gone every week since then.

“With him,” she said, “it’s been a life preserver.”