UD’s lifelong learning program partners with Lewes church
The University of Delaware’s popular Osher Lifelong Learning Institute educational program for adults ages 50 and older plans to add new Lewes classrooms in 2020 at the Trinity Faith Christian Center on New Road.
University of Delaware Provost Robin W. Morgan recently announced the new classroom partnership to a standing-room-only crowd of OLLI members and supporters at OLLI’s current Lewes facility in the Fred Thomas Building on Dupont Avenue.
Special guests present for the announcement included I.G. Burton Jr., Sussex County Council vice president and UD trustee; Delaware state Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes; and Ralph Begleiter, OLLI instructor, UD professor emeritus and former CNN correspondent.
UD’s OLLI southern Delaware program has been based in Lewes since 1993 and has experienced tremendous growth over the years, said Anna Moshier, OLLI’s Kent and Sussex County program manager. “Ten years ago, we held about 50 classes each semester in Lewes. This spring, we’re offering 117 classes across our Sussex County locations, 91 of those in Lewes alone.”
With the program’s expanding membership and course roster, the extra classroom space will be a welcome addition, said Moshier. “We’re thrilled about the new location, and we couldn’t be more pleased about our new partnership with Trinity Faith Christian Center,” she said.
Although OLLI programs are not faith-based, Bishop Arthur D. Jones of Trinity Faith Christian Center said the church’s leadership team welcomes the partnership and sees it as a good fit with their outreach philosophy. “Our church’s ministry has always been community oriented, and we’ve always supported education,” said Jones. “We’re involved in senior ministry, children’s ministry and veterans ministry, and we strongly believe we should find the needs in our surrounding community and help to meet those needs.”
UD’s lifelong learning program in southern Delaware was founded more than 30 years ago as the Southern Delaware Academy of Lifelong Learning with just 59 members. With the program now boasting 1,050 members in Kent and Sussex counties, the timing was right for this expansion, said Moshier.
The first OLLI classes planned for the Trinity Faith Christian Center are set for summer 2020. OLLI classes will still be held at the Fred Thomas Building and other nearby locations, including Ocean View Town Hall, Heritage Shores Clubhouse in Bridgeville and The Moorings at Lewes. In Kent County, OLLI classes are held at Wyoming Church in Dover, and at Delaware State University as part of a new community partnership.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program is designed for adults age 50-plus to take classes and socialize together, with no grades or exams. The OLLI program is organized as a learning cooperative with a membership fee, not tuition. The current fee of $175 per semester provides unlimited OLLI course registration at any Kent or Sussex County OLLI location. Partial scholarships are available.
OLLI’s spring semester takes place Monday, Jan. 27, to Monday, April 6. Registration is now open.
The community is invited to an open house and walk-in registration event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 8, at the Fred Thomas Building, 520 Dupont Ave., Lewes, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Course subjects for spring OLLI classes in Lewes include estate planning and investments, healthy living, intelligence in the digital age, memoir writing, Martin Luther King Jr., basket-making, the French Revolution and Napoleon, African American literature and more.
For more information, contact OLLI at 302-645-4111 or olli-kent-sussex@udel.edu, or go to www.olli.udel.edu/kent-sussex.
