Those who join OLLI may choose from more than 300 non-credit classes throughout the year, as well as participate in a number of social and special interest activities. OLLI is affiliated with the University’s College of Continuing Education and the national Osher Lifelong Institute and the Bernard Osher Foundation.

My name is Gary Hanson, interim executive director of OLLI, based at the University of Minnesota. One of my responsibilities is to ensure that we continue to offer courses to our members that are high in quality, relevant, and timely. These courses need course leaders, and I can’t think of a more fertile area to explore for potential course leaders than the wealth of teaching talent that exists in UMRA.

OLLI courses are typically six or eight weeks long with 90- minute sessions once a week. Course leaders determine the content of the course, and we try to locate a class site that is convenient to the course leader. OLLI currently holds classes in 38 different sites around the Twin Cities.

We offer courses in the arts, social sciences, physical sciences, and a catch-all miscellaneous category. While we are interested in courses in all areas—given what is currently going on in the domains of physics, cosmology, astronomy, and biology—we are particularly interested in beefing up this part of our curriculum.

If this sounds like a fit for you, and if you might be interested in talking about creating and leading a course for OLLI, we would be very interested in meeting with you. You may contact me at 612-625-3964 or [email protected].

We would also like to hear from any member of UMRA who might be interested in learning about and possibly joining OLLI.

— Gary Hanson, interim executive director, OLLI