Where Learning Story By Stacey Patton-Wallace Photos By Mike Wallace
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earning for the sheer enjoyment of it. No tests, no projects, no research papers, no grades, no stress. No way, right? However, this happens every day, Monday through Friday at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Auburn University. OLLI’s predecessor, the Auburn University Academy For Lifelong Learners (AUALL) was founded in the early nineties. According to the book, The First Ten Years of AUALL1990-2000, the fee for the first term in Spring 1990 was $50. That first term, AUALL offered four study groups: “Great Decisions: U.S. Foreign Policy,” “Physics: Entropy,” “Comparative World Religions” and “The Ascent of Man.”
Mary Burkhart, who had helped found AUALL, learned about an Osher endowment, wrote a grant and AUALL became OLLI at Auburn in 2010. Today’s OLLI has grown a great deal since those four original study groups in 1990. This past winter term, OLLI offered students over 40 classes from to choose from. During this time, OLLI members enjoyed the following classes: Hiking, Cooking, Memoir Writing, Line Dancing, Tai Chi, Common Law, Rivers of Alabama, Literature, Learning Spanish, Contemporary Architecture, Spacecraft and American Society, England in the Late Middle Ages and many others. Although OLLI was originally designed for adults 50 and older, anyone who is an adult is welcome to take
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