Never Too Old To Learn

It is inspiring to learn that a 90-year-old French woman Colette Bourlier became one of the oldest people in France to be awarded a Ph.D. this week, 30 years after she first began researching immigrant workers in Besancon, in eastern France.

The New York Times reported that she wrote all 400 pages of her thesis by hand and was eventually awarded a doctorate in geography after being questioned for more than two hours by an academic jury. She received a “high distinction” for her thesis, titled “Immigrant Workers in Besancon in the Second Half of the 20th Century.” Born in 1925 in Lyon, Bourlier, a former geography and history teacher, began to study for her doctorate after she retired in 1983. Asked why it had taken her so long to complete her thesis, Bourlier said it’s because she took some breaks. As she was going deaf, she had to sit close to the jury during her oral examination so she could hear her questioners.

Bourlier is not the oldest student in the world to have been awarded a doctorate. Last June, Ingeborg Rapoport, a 102-year-old German woman, received her doctorate nearly 80 years after Hitler’s anti-Semitic laws prevented her from completing her final oral exam. To prepare to defend her thesis on diphtheria, a bacterial infection that was a global threat at the time, Rapoport, whose eyesight was failing, had to brush up on advances in treating the disease over the previous 80 years.

Another nonagenarian Ph.D. graduate is Lis Kirkby, who in 2014 earned her doctorate from the University of Sydney at age 93. Her thesis examined the impact of economic orthodoxy on unemployment during the Great Depression in Australia. Before receiving her doctorate, Kirkby was active in state politics in Australia, acted in a soap opera and worked as a journalist and a sheep farmer.

We boomers do not have to wait till we’re nonagenarians or centenarians before we complete our highest level of education. Nor do we necessarily have to become a Ph.D. graduate. In fact, one is never too old to learn and many baby boomers are increasingly hitting the books again and taking courses designed just for them.

Most universities in Canada offer courses for mature students in their Schools of Continuing Studies. In the U.S., the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) is an educational program that offers courses designed for older adults, funded by the Bernard Osher Foundation. The Foundation sponsors 117 programs in all 50 states, all in-person, and the best part is there is no mid-term exams, finals or grades.

The Road Scholar, a division of Elderhostel, Inc., is an educational travel organization geared to older adults that offers national and international learning experiences for lifelong learners looking  for a scene outside the classroom. It offers beyond-the-classroom exploration of the world with 5,500 tours throughout the U.S. and 150 countries, including Canada, led by expert instructors. Examples include going behind-the-scenes of American diplomacy in the Washington D.C. program or explore the French cuisine in Paris while learning about the culture.

Programs vary in duration. Seven to 21-day programs are available, many with international destinations, which often appeal to retirees. Costs for a course typically run from U.S.$500 to U.S.$1,000 with overseas courses costing around U.S.$3,000. According to JoAnn Bell, vice president of programs at Road Scholar, their international business is up 30 percent. “We think we’ll see tremendous growth as baby boomers become age-eligible for these programs,” she said.

Another interesting avenue for lifelong learning is the Harvard University Institute For Learning In Retirement established in 1977. It offers no grades or degrees, but provides an idea-centric curriculum that changes all the time. Limited to 550 members to keep it a manageable and close community, the Institute is a peer-learning membership organization that is self-governing and offers more than 500 interesting programs.

I’ve mentioned before in my media interviews that baby boomers have an insatiable desire to learn. With so many lifelong learning options available to us now, nobody should “expire” in retirement!