By Craig Anderson, President
Lifelong Learning Institute At Edison College
Punta Gorda, Florida
After nine years as a program of the Charlotte Community Foundation,
Learning in Retirement is blazing a new trail that includes an enhanced
affiliation with Edison College and a change of name.
Learning in Retirement began in 1996 as a program under the aegis of
the Charlotte Community Foundation. This close working partnership helped
insure the success of LIR over the years. We will always be thankful
for it. In recent months, the Foundation has been moving away from program
oversight. LIR was invited to reconfigure its relationship to CCF. Our
Board saw this as an opportunity to step out on our own – incorporate
as an independent not-for profit organization and explore a closer relationship
with Edison College where our classes have been taught in recent years.
Meetings with Dr. Patricia Land and her staff culminated in a proposal
for a new and closer affiliation with Edison that includes moving the
LIR office to the campus.
At the same time, we also decided to change our name from Learning
in Retirement to Lifelong Learning Institute at Edison College. This
decision was prompted by our closer affiliation with Edison and a recommendation
of the Elderhostel Institute Network with whom we have relationship
as one of many lifelong learning programs they recognize.
This fall our board has been working diligently to prepare and adopt
new by-laws and to finalize our agreement with Edison. Special thanks
go to Joanne Ryder of our board for her wise leadership and work in
the preparation of these by-laws and in our applications for incorporation.
We are excited by these changes and believe they will strengthen our
program in the years to come. We hope you share our enthusiasm.
Taken from the spring 2006 newsletter of the Lifelong Learning Institute
at Edison College in Punta Gorda, Florida and reprinted here with permission.
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