2019 Annual Conference

Colleges and Universities

Shared Concurrent Session (Approx. 12 or 20 minutes)

This paper/presenation will examine how universities and colleges can transform structures and pedagogies to become age friendly serving the needs of adults of all ages. It will examine in particular the progress which two universities have made to become age friendly (one in the UK and one in Ireland).

The session will be of interest to teachers, managers who are engaging with older learners. It will also be of interest to those  concerned with policy development in  colleges and higher education. It would also be of interest to adult educators and other professionals  working in various  sectors and who wish to develop age-friendly policies and practices.

By the end of the session participants will:
Understand why colleges and higher education institutions should develop learning opportunities for older adults
Know and understand the barriers faced to increasing particiationof older adults
Know and understand age-friendly principles to increase participation of older adults
Have learned from experience in widening partication of older adults in two institutions
Understand how the education of older adults can comtribute to progressing the human rights and economic empowerment of older adults

This paper/presentation will focus on an Age Friendly University  initiative, designed to create radical transformation of college/university structures and pedagogies to better serve  the educational need of  adults of all ages.  The paper/presentation is based on work carreid out in three universities across three countries , Dublin City University,Ireland,  Arizona State University , USA , and the University of Strathclyde ,  Glasgow, UK ;  It wil examine how these universities coalesced to craft and design principles around which to organize a radical transformation which would enable universities to beome more age friendly. The workshop will discuss a guiding philosophical and conceptual framework , highlight the foundational elements of  ten  designed principles, and illustrate how implementation of these design principles have transformed these  institutions  from traditional learning institutions to those serving lifelong learners of all ages. It will examine efforts to organize pedagogy, research and other institutional practices to promote diversity and inclusion and address marginalization as a foundational component in institutional re-organization. It will  also examine  the forms of support required to train age-friendly instructors and provide age-friendly experiences for learners.

The session will include:

An introduction to the topic and  short presentation using powepoint (20  mins)

Sharing of experiences on age friendly initiatives based on experience within the the group (10 mins)

Discussion on problems and issues in implementing the concept of age friendly institutions and issues arising from the presentation (10 mins) 

Reflection on the usefulness of the  session (5 mins)