OLLI SFSU Newsletter
May 2006

Welcome

REGISTER FOR SUMMER COURSES AND THE JUNE 16 SYMPOSIUM: Older Americans---To Work or Not to Work? Information and links are included below.

In this Issue...

• Upcoming Events
• Faculty Spotlight
  • Anne Galjour
  • Max Kirkeberg
• Summer Courses
• OLLI Community - openings in Geezer Theater and Writers Group
• Annual Symposium - complete schedule

Upcoming Events

May 18, Thursday, 3:30-5:30pm, OLLI Summer Open House, Downtown Center, meet faculty and other OLLI members over wine and cheese. We will discuss the Summer Symposium, Older Americans: To Work or Not To Work, and summer courses on the environment, playwriting, acting, interior design, chocolate-tasting, walking and writing and maintaining mobility. Call 415.817.4251 to reserve a space.

May 19, Friday, 4:00-7:00pm, Celebration Event at the Downtown Center. Hear and experience the creative work by OLLI members during this spring session---monologues, memoir, poetry, digital photography, Geezer Theater and more.

May 23, Tuesday, 12 Noon to 2pm, World Affairs Discussion Group will meet at the Downtown Center to discuss the topic of Intelligent Design vs. evolution. The discussion will be led by Earl Frick and will focus on how to bridge the chasm between the Progressives and fundamentalists.

May 25, Thursday, 1:00-3:30 pm, Drumming and Healing Circle will be held at Debra Varner’s home. Everyone is welcome to come check the circle out.

June 16, Friday, 9am to 4pm, OLLI Annual Symposium, at the JCC, 3200 California Street. They symposium is entitled: Older Americans: To Work or Not to Work? This symposium explores the growing trend in which older Americans are continuing to work, or opting to return to work, during the so-called retirement years. Keynote talks, roundtables and workshop discussions will examine such issues as:

• Why people are working longer.
• Stereotypes and barriers that push many older employees out of the market and make finding employment difficult.
• How older workers could fill needed roles in critical industries and public services.
• The potential to affect America's work culture if employers adopt policies that encourage the work-life balance older and other workers need.

In addition, presenters will provide practical advice on where and how older adults can find the kinds of jobs they seek. This event is for anyone interested in the future of work and retirement. Fee is $35 (before June 16 and for OLLI-SFSU members) and $50 at the door on June 16. Fee includes box lunch.

Faculty Spotlight:
Anne Galjour

Among the many unique talents and personalities who teach classes at OLLI is renowned playwright Anne Galjour. Anne Galjour is a lecturer in the Creative Writing Department at S. F. State University where she teaches graduate and undergraduate play writing classes. She is the recipient of numerous national and Bay Area awards for her work. Her one-woman plays have been produced at Berkeley Rep, Seattle Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club and many other venues.

Anne's playwriting credits include The Queen of the Sea, commission and produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre; The Kitchen for the Bay Area Playwrights' Foundation; Okra produced by Brava Theatre Center, Southern Rep and True Blue Playhouse. Her new play, Bird in the Hand commissioned by Z Space Studios will go into production next year and she's just been commissioned by Dartmouth College to write a new play based on New England class divide.

OLLI members will have the privilege of receiving Anne's expert guidance. On Mondays and Wednesdays, July 05, 2006 through July 31, 2006, Anne will teach a class at OLLI Downtown Center entitled Building a Play Beat by Beat. This course will help you find your voice as writer and deepen your understanding of the principles of dramatic writing. Each week you'll do in-class writing exercises that explore elements of craft: action, conflict, climax, character and dialog. Special emphasis is placed on beats, the smallest unit of a play containing action conflict and event. Take-home exercises reinforce elements discussed in class. Students’ scenes are presented as part of each class meeting. Students will write at least two short plays by the end of our eight meetings together.

Anne's work is widely celebrated for expressing her passion for the sensual flavor of life in Louisiana through memory and humor. She has performed much of her recent work it raise money and awareness for victims of Katrina. Her play Okra was playing in New Orleans to sold out houses for four months straight till Katrina hit.

Anne's brother-in-law and his family lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. In addition, a tree went through her in-laws' roof whereupon everyone evacuated to Baton Rouge. Fortunately Anne's family's property had only minor damage. Anne explains, “The tragedy in New Orleans is that all of the neighborhoods are gone. It's an old city where many many families were living in the same neighborhoods for well over 150 years. In New Orleans, when you get married you move next door to your mama and daddy's house. This is the way it was street after street through out the city. Eighty percent of the city still doesn't have electricity! How can you move back when that's not back on line? And there are towns that [assistance] still haven't got to yet. This is a national shame.

Anne grew up in a family that loved to tell stories and they told them in French. She reports that she grew up in the kitchens of my mother, grandmother and aunts where she, “heard a lot of stories while engaged in the rhythms and rituals of life.”

Anne came to theatre obliquely; she studied ballet for most of her childhood and for a long time thought she would be a dancer.

Anne and her husband were encouraged to come to San Francisco 25 years ago by friends who were doing well in the theatre scene here. They came to check it out and ended up staying. Anne discovered one of the major differences between the New Orleans and San Francisco's theatre scenes: “The price of real estate in San Francisco has had a devastating affect on the theatre scene in San Francisco for most artists and small theatre companies--the lion's share of money generated from grants and tickets sales usually goes to high rental fees for space and, therefore, affects what you can pay yourself and your professional colleagues. Ticket prices are jacked up and audience numbers are affected. The out of control rents are especially hard on emerging artists who are trying to build their audience base. However, creating is fundamental to being human--human beings cannot help but create. Those of us who choose to remain here just keep sprouting up new work, new ideas and ways of staying afloat.”

Anne describes her work: “Because of where I grew up, Nature has always been a character in my work. My characters always end up learning that the machinations of man cannot trump Nature. Even my new play, Flying Through, which is about people and birds in migration, has that same them of Nature as a powerful force. I hope to convey love in my work.”

And if she were not performing? Anne declares, “I don't think about it, though I really like teaching and writing for others.”

Faculty Spotlight:
Max Kirkeberg

Max Kirkeberg has been teaching Geography at SFSU since 1965. You can read more about him in SFSU Magazine.

A student comments on Max's SFSU class: "Max is hilarious and his class is such a great way to get to know the city," says senior liberal studies major Meredith Rosenberg. "I've learned so much about types and styles of architecture and I've seen places I didn’t know existed."

Experience the Max Kirkeberg treatment by enrolling in his summer Walking the Neighborhoods class. There will be four meetings from July 11, 2006 through July 20, 2006 starting at the SFSU Downtown Center, Street.

Define geography
The study of spacial relationships. One of the fundamental questions is: What is the place like? We start with place and attempt a description that includes everything about that place, its human and physical components. It's history with maps.

What got you hooked on geography?
I've always been fascinated by maps. Back in the 40s, mostly the end of the 40s, traveling with my parents I was the official navigator. Filling stations gave free maps and I collected them. Alas, I've lost track of them. The world has changed and they'd be out of date now, but wouldn't they be lovely historical artifacts?

When I got to college I thought I was going to be a History teacher and declared History as my major in college but I always was a good student. I took extra classes and my favorite teacher turned out to be the Geography teacher. I was drafted into the army and after I returned to college I ended up with three majors: History, Geography and Political Science.

It seems to me that geography and history must necessarily intersect. Is that so?
Absolutely! One of the classes I love to teach is Introduction to Human Geography. Students often come into the class reluctantly assuming it will be boring. Then the students begin to become very interested. If you talk people through what kinds of information maps provide, most people are converted.

You were raised in Iowa. What brought you to San Francisco? Do we have better geography?
One of my fellow graduate students at the University of Wisconsin got a job at SFSU and at some point, through our correspondence, I discovered there was a teaching opening. I came here with not much idea of San Francisco other than the usual. When I went to Ocean Beach it seemed so cold! I couldn't get used to the idea that you put on clothes to go to the beach! I had moved here and was at my first party and didn't know people and someone asked where I was from which is a town of five hundred. I said I was from rural Iowa and he said, “Isn't that redundant?”

Does the study of geography make one a better citizen? Traveler?
Of course, since we study on a very wide spectrum that includes all aspects of a place we geographs truly understand how interrelated everything is as well as how different places are increasingly interdependent.

You must be in heaven during this 100th anniversary of the earthquake with all the interest in the new SF layered over the old SF.
Absolutely! I went to the festivities at Lotta's fountain. The people on the platform who were being interviewed stressed that they were natives. But I thought the crowd was probably 90% non-native.

It bothered me, when I first started looking for the 1906 fire line, that the Victorian landscape on one side of the street and the post-fire landscape on the other looked so much alike. For example, the old Victorian mansions that were saved on the west side of Van Ness have nearly all been replaced by newer buildings and thus the firel ine is blurred: both sides look the same. 20th Street, between Dolores and Valencia is the best example I know of where the fire line is distinct. On the north side is an Edwardian landscape while the south side is Victorian. Edwardian architecture is far more restrained. Part of the visual appeal of the Victorians is that, by the end of the 19th Century, everything that could be was put on them. By 1906, the reaction to this busy-ness produced the restrained and proper Beaux Artes ornamentation, moreover, the rebuilt areas were constructed quickly and remarkably uniformly, usually as flats. So there's far less diversity in the rebuilt housing.

You teach at SFSU and also classes at OLLI. What are the differences in the students besides age.
I've been teaching at SFSU since 1965. It's the only job I've had other than de-tasseling corn in Iowa. The OLLI students invariably have some history in San Francisco. At classes at State, as opposed to OLLI, I'm the only old-timer who can say how it used to be. The OLLI students are people my age and I encourage a lot of sharing so I get to find out new stuff, too. The seniors who take the walking classes are more fit than anyone. They don't worry about the hills. When we're going to be walking up hills, I make sure there's plenty to talk about so we get to stop and catch our breath. We've done Telegraph Hill up the west side and down the steps on the east.

What would you like to be doing if you weren't doing this?
When I was a grad student at Wisconsin I spent a lot of time agonizing over what geography is and whether I should pursue it as a career. I was told that if I had a fascination with maps and a love of travel, geography would be for me. So the answer is, I'll be traveling.
I'm fully retired and still have an office and I go to it for a couple of hours most days. I don't teach in the Fall and the Fall is a good time to travel. That's my plan.

Do you travel?
I do but when you've identified SF as your home...I have friends who save all the newspapers for me when I'm away and I find I'm rushing to get home.

What is your favorite part of SF?
That's like asking a mother which of her children is the favorite. But I do think if you live in Bernal Heights where I live, you really should have a dog.

Speaking of dogs, you just got a new puppy. Will he/she be going on your SF walks with your classes?
It's a girl. She's a mutt. Over the spring break I drove 2000 miles to Oklahoma to get this dog. I have a cousin in Tulsa who has a friend who rescued one of the Katrina dogs, who produced nine puppies immediately after. I'd just lost my dog of 15 years and my cousin sent me pictures and one puppy looked just like the dog I'd lost. She's the runt of the litter who is probably going to be around 60 pounds! She looks sort of like a Rhodesian Ridgeback.

If she gets incredibly trained quickly she will go on class walks, but not at the moment. I have in the past taken dogs to Land's End walks.

Summer Courses

Classes starting in June:

• Lifespan Design for Your Home or Your Parents’ Home with Julie Cotton
• Characterization and Scene Study with Mary Bishop-Faust
• Digital Photography Basics with Dave Hurley
• Sustainable Development and Our Relationship to Earth with Nicola Swinburne
• Walking and Writing with Stephen Vincent
• The Writers Circle with Joan Holden and Susan Hoffman
• Chocolate Awakening with Leonard Pitt
• Maintaining Mobility with Penny Sablove

Classes starting in July

• Playwriting Workshop with Anne Galjour
• Blogging for Beginners with Nick Maffei
• Create Short Movies on the PC with Nick Maffei
• Walking the Neighborhoods with Max Kirkeberg
• Meditation, Medication and Psychotherapy: Understanding and Managing the Ups and Downs of Mid-Life with Lesley Nan Fishelman

Check the OLLI website for more details.

OLLI Community

Geezer Theater is welcoming new members to the company. For more information contact Debra Varner.

New writing groups are forming. On Wednesdays in May, 5:30-7:30 at the Downtown Center, interested writers are meeting to read their work and to decide if they would like to form small, ongoing groups. Please feel free to drop in.

OLLI VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

• Do you enjoy learning new things and making new friends?
• Are you interested in working with interesting people on creative projects?
• Do you enjoy brainstorming sessions on complex problems?
• Would you like to become involved in vital undertakings that offer opportunity for loads of personal gratification and recognition?
• Do you  enjoy the company of like-minded, well-informed and sociable persons?

Membership in the community of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute's member-learners offers the opportunity to realize all these desires, and more. Attending classes at OLLI is merely the opening move into a society of active, informed adults. By volunteering for the various governance committees of OLLI you can determine the policies and future of the organization.

Everyone who enrolls in an OLLI course/s is considered a member.  OLLI-SFSU is an inclusive network and learning community of peers. In addition, OLLI members receive newsletters, invitations to special presentations, lunchtime discussions, salons, and the celebration event where OLLI members share their creative and critical work from the semester. OLLI facilitates members continuing to meet outside the classroom with ongoing discussion, writing, reading, and performing groups. Yes, if in the course of learning you develop a particularly strong interest in a creative activity and you care to continue working in concert with classmates, you can form an interest group.

Annual Symposium

Will Older Workers Change Americas Work Culture?

June 16 symposium examines the trend toward unretirement

SAN FRANCISCO -- Forget the golf clubs and cruises. In a trend that is just beginning to capture the attention of businesses and policy makers, a growing number of older Americans is working at least part time during their so-called retirement years.

The percentage of workers 55 and older is rising four times faster than the work force as a whole, and recent surveys suggest that about 80% of the baby boomers and their contemporaries a few years older will keep working as they move through their 50s, 60s and 70s, often because they need the income but also to stay physically and mentally active.

At the same time, many companies, nonprofits and government agencies face current or projected manpower shortages, in part because many older workers will be retiring or moving on to new opportunities, and subsequent generations are unable to fill their shoes.

So how will these converging trends affect older workers, organizations and workplace culture? A June 16 symposium co-sponsored by San Francisco State Universitys Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) and the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco will attempt to provide some answers.

The all-day symposium, titled Older Americans: To Work or Not to Work, is the first Bay Area event to focus on the graying of the workforce and its implications for society.

Panels and workshops will explore such key issues as:

The potential of older workers to fill needed roles in critical industries and service sectors, and the benefits for society in the face of projected worker shortfalls.

The potential for older workers to transform America's work culture by motivating employers to adopt alternative work arrangements and work-life balance that older workers need.

The symposium will take place at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California St. (at Presidio) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, please visit the OLLI events page.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

The symposium is open to older workers and volunteers as well as anyone interested in the future of work and retirement, including human resource managers and other representatives of business, education and government, career counselors, media, labor union representatives and thought leaders in the area of work and older adults.

TO REGISTER

Please call 415.405.7700 and provide this information:

• Schedule Number 96030, CE8631, Section N 01

Fee, with box lunch included:
$35 (before June 16 and for OLLI-SFSU members)
$50 at the door on June 16

Panels and workshops will examine key issues around older workers:

• Why people are opting to keep working (economic necessity, desire to stay physically and mentally active, an urge to give back, etc.)
  
  
• Stereotypes and barriers that push many older employees out of the market and make finding employment difficult.
  
  
• How older workers could fill needed roles in critical industries and public service, and the benefits for society in the face of projected overall worker shortfalls.
  
  
• The potential to affect America's work culture by motivating employers to adopt policies that encourage the alternative work options and work-life balance that older and other workers need.
  
  
• The downside of "unretiring" for older workers who have health issues, yet need income, as well as the possible effect of older part-time employees on options for younger workers.
  
  
• Areas where training and education are needed for employers and potential employees
  
  
• Where and how older adults can find the kinds of jobs they seek.