Hofstra continuing education draws retirees

Gather people of varied professional backgrounds and many years of life experience in one room and there are bound to be some opposing points of view.

For instance:

"If you stop [immigrant] children from going to school, eventually they cannot get a job. An underclass that's not educated still needs to eat," said Phyllis Stern, rising to her feet in a Hofstra University auditorium and elaborating on why she believes Alabama's recently passed immigration controls are ill-advised.

"The feds ought to keep that kind of law off the books," said Simon Shink, 78, agreeing with Stern, who is 71.

Then Richard Bernstein, 62, weighed in.

"Words have meaning," he said. "They're here 'illegally.' That's the problem."

His was the lone opposing view among a group of retirees at a Tuesday morning "News & Views" session, a student-led discussion that is part of the curriculum for Hofstra's Personal Enrichment in Retirement, or PEIR, continuing education program at the university in Hempstead.

That Bernstein's thoughts on the charged subject of immigration prompted no pushback from any of his 75 or so classmates says something about the group's desire to be engaged in the world of ideas and not arguments for arguments' sake.

Hearing what another has to say is central to the group's quest for lifelong learning, agreed Bernstein, a former high school Spanish teacher, Stern, a retired library clerk, and Shink, a retired pharmacist. The same is true, they added, for classmates who attend sessions four days a week during the fall and spring semesters and weekly during summer in the wide-ranging PEIR courses. Each course is selected, researched and taught by students in PEIR, which started 35 years ago. But PEIR also functions as a social network that has produced friendships and even a few romances.

"From day one, I was sold on the place," said Bernstein, who joined the group last March. "People in PEIR are so knowledgeable and well-read . . . And there's also the social aspect of what we do."

The highlights of PEIR's social calendar include November's annual luncheon, the May dinner-dance and a summer afternoon at the racetrack.

Such extracurricular events complement what the retirees say are rigorous academic courses about everything from economics to the arts to the arguable connectedness of humans, robots and extraterrestrials.

"I've done four presentations, so far . . . One was on the Rosenbergs," said Bernstein, referring to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the couple convicted and executed for espionage in 1953. "It was a topic that interested me, and I was astounded that someone in PEIR actually worked in a hospital with Harry Gold, one of the spies who testified against the Rosenbergs. This is a truly amazing group, with a depth and breadth of experience and knowledge."

That's also how Mortimer Goldstein, 97, sees it. With 22 years on PEIR's roster, he is its most long-standing student.

"The idea is to get out there, keep your mind active so you're not sitting around, lying in bed until 10 a.m., becoming a house fixture," the former insurance broker said.

"The subjects are always good and interesting. I also find it very interesting, during lunchtime, to sit with a group of people around a table and just talk. 'What did you see? What did you read?' This helps keep you alive."

A varied group

PEIR's enrollment is comprised of former professionals who run the gamut of occupations and avocations: doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, social workers, engineers, florists, librarians, pharmacists, chief executives and others. PEIR lets them pursue new and long-held interests that their workaday lives often granted neither the time nor energy to explore, they said.

For example, the recent lectures included talks on cosmology, the romantic lives of presidents, unsolved murders, the state of American education, labor unrest, great American plays and so on.

At a time when seniors are the fastest-growing segment of the American population, programs such as PEIR debunk any abiding notions that aging diminishes an individual's worth or that the aged are to be shunted into a corner.

"This kind of program keeps us invigorated," said Jack Hollenberg, 86, a semiretired attorney who is PEIR's chairman. "We've gone through life and experienced so much of life, but there's so much that we do not know and want to know."

As chairman, Hollenberg is the main liaison between PEIR members and the administration.

"We may have members who are in their 90s, using a cane and a hearing aid," Hollenberg added. "But their minds are still acute. I've been around a lot of intelligent people in my lifetime. But sitting in on my first PEIR philosophy class, well, the level of thought and ideas just blew me away. I went home and told my wife I wasn't smart enough to be a part of this group."

He said his own presentation on past and current applications of Sharia law, which is based on the Quran, Islam's holy book, took six weeks of intense preparation.

"We've got a few experts in certain subject areas," Hollenberg said. "But mostly we're a group of interested people who immerse ourselves in a subject. We are learning by preparing, studying and listening to each other. We believe we're an important part of the university and that by watching us other people, especially the young students, will be completely inspired."

A more direct, intentional engagement with those younger students is on PEIR members' wish list, and participants are pondering how to do more than, say, exchange passing pleasantries with younger students in the cafeteria or, as did one member, attend volleyball games to root for the female players with whom she'd chanced upon in a conversation.

Nevertheless, as PEIR students figure out how to make deeper connections with conventional students, what's clear is their incalculable value to the university, said Terence Ryan, senior program director for the continuing education office.

"They bring a wealth of experience, personally and professionally," Ryan said. "The biggest thing is that [younger students] see them walking around school, whether in the cafeteria, the student center. They notice. They are probably intrigued as to what their mission is here. The students see them as part of the community."

Making new connections

Creating community is essential to the work of PEIR, said Marilyn Gordon, who cheered from the sidelines at those volleyball games and led a recent "News & Views" session.

PEIR members counsel each other about the fine points of doing well in retirement, which is one means of bolstering a retiree's sense of community. Friendships forged through PEIR also bind that community. And some of those friendships do morph into something more, said Gordon, whose beau, Bruce Klein, held a book light to her news clippings as she led a "News & Views" session.

"Any comments, please?" she asked, drawing and reading from one clip after another, including an article on online dating among seniors.

Finding love is a big deal and, for her, an ancillary benefit of PEIR.

"We met right here," Gordon said, smiling at Klein.

"In the Hofstra cafeteria," Klein said, smiling back.

"Oh, but Marilyn and Bruce are new," interjected Mita Smith, 87, a retired pharmacist, as she listened to Gordon and Klein, noting that she and Sol Schwartz, a former chief executive who is also 87, are a couple, too. "Sol and I have been together for 12 years. He lost two wives and I lost a husband, and we just connected here."

A gaggle of PEIR members laughed.

But Smith turns serious as she reflects on the program and her classmates.

"This is absolutely the friendliest, most wonderful organization," she said. "Everybody is on the same level, whether you're a PhD or a mechanic. There are no deliberate intimidations. We're just a bunch of normal human beings who get along, and who are extremely curious about what's happening in the world today and about so many, many other things."

Brain teasers

Besides cultural field trips and hobbies, the curriculum for Personal Enrichment in Retirement, a Hofstra University continuing education program for retirees 55 and older, includes topics in:

• The arts

When & where

The largely self-directed group chooses its own study topics and selects lecturers from its ranks. They meet from 10 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Learn more

516-463-7200

hofstra.edu/academics/ce/lifelonglearning/peir/

-- Katti Gray