The Arlington Learning in Retirement Institute will begin its third semester of college-level courses in March. Course registration will begin at the ALRI Open House on Friday, February 6 at the George Mason University Arlington Campus. The new semester includes many of ALRI’s most popular old courses and new courses taught by many of ALRI’s most popular instructors. Added to this mix are entirely new courses presented by talented new instructors, with major offerings in the arts, history, literature, international relations, ecology, and politics.
The success of ALRI has been almost meteoric. Work began a little more than a year and a half ago. The first semester in the spring of 2003 was designed to be a test run with a few courses and a relatively small student body of one hundred or so. Instead, ALRI put together a course offering of about 16 courses for over three hundred students.
Just a year later, ALRI is offering thirty-two courses to more than 400 prospective students. The courses are remarkable in their diversity. Tom Wukitsch is repeating a wildly popular course on Roman architecture. Tom is a very tough taskmaster, intellectually speaking, and his students love the depth and breadth of the course. The George Mason University Theater Department has put together a course on World Theater. Thurlow Wilson is teaching the history of ancient Egypt. GMU Provost Peter Stearns will lead a course on “Perspectives in World History.” Martin Ogle will lecture on the links between biology and geology.
This is just a taste of the smorgasbord of courses that ALRI students will enjoy.
ALRI is part of a nationwide system of institutes loosely allied with Elderhostel that offer college-level courses and intellectual experiences for the retired. The intellectual rigor and course preparation is equal to college courses, with the welcome exception of required term papers and examinations. The students love the courses because of this intellectual rigor, and the instructors (most of whom have college and graduate school level teaching experience – or the equivalent in life experience) love the courses because their students are usually deeply engaged and very responsive to the intellectual experience.
In Arlington, the ALRI is co-sponsored by George Mason University, the Arlington School System, and Marymount University. Courses are held in all three locations. ALRI is just completing an arrangement with Arlington’s Park and Recreation Department, which will enable it to use the resources of that department’s senior citizen programs. As important as these are to a dynamic intellectual program, the foundation of ALRI is in the work of its volunteers, including the instructors who are paid nothing but the respect and enthusiasm of their students. (That’s not quite true. They get a great mug, maybe a pen or two, a t-shirt, and a very nice annual reception at a home of an ALRI leader, but please don’t tell anybody.)
If you are interested in this program either as a member-student, a volunteer, or teacher, you should make plans to attend the February 6 meeting. It will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will be in the large room on the third floor of the “old” building on the George Mason University Arlington campus on the corner of North Fairfax Drive and Kirkwood Road. For more information, you can contact ALRI as follows. Mailing address: 2801 Clarendon Boulevard,
