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From Diane Pawlowski - Renaissance Institute, College of Notre
Dame, MD
I am a member of the Renaissance Institute of the College of Notre Dame
of Maryland, an ILR founded thirteen years ago, which presently has 325
members. We now have a waiting list of approximately 250 people who want
to join our school. I would like to know if any of you have similar waiting
lists; if so, I would appreciate hearing about your policies, problems
and solutions. Thank you for any input you can give me.
From Jonah Sherman Marist College Center for Lifetime Study,Poughkeepsie,New
York
Our program is entering our 10th year. We have had a wait list larger
than our membership of 375 for more than 6 years. Our wait list currently
is about 425 people. Our wait list has three streams- Persons who have
a spouse in the program have priority for membership. The second stream
are those who have presented a course of six or more class sessions and
the third stream is the rest of the wait list. We will be accepting about
30 new people to our membership this year as a result of deaths, leaving
the area or loss of interest. One additional way we have to improve access
is to encourage other programs to startup in surrounding communities.
We have been proactive and been involved in at least two startups in the
last year. One has already started on a wait list. We created a wait list
because we have limited facilities for classes and have always considered
socialization an important factor. As we got larger we started to lose
individual contact that our program felt was important.
From Dick Di Vecchio, Lifetime Learners Institute, Norwalk Community
College, Norwalk, CT
We do not YET have a problem, but we are trying to face up to it when
it comes. One way is to attempt to find other palces to hold classes;
we have four additional sites and are looking for more (Havr you tried
libraries, senior centers, YMCA's, town or city municipal facilities,
and churches and
or temples? Perhaps a second way is to affiliate with another college
that will allow for more classroom space or even have two colleges and
hold classes in both. This assumes that the restriction is based on a
space problem; if you have restricted the membership because yoru group
merely wishes to hold the group to 325 because of scheduling and work
loads, then the solution is to get more volunteers etc. Would be interested
in knowing what you do in the long run to solve the problem; seems like
a darn shame that you have almost as many members waiting to get in as
you have members.
From Harry Estill, LifeLong Learning Institute, Washington University,
St. Louis MO
Diane, my reaction is similar to Dick Delveccio's (Norwalk). Why the restriction
on classes and students? It's a shame to disappoint so many interested
persons! Our own restriction has and continues to be the number of qualified
course facilitators ready with courses. We encourage new people to co-host,
thereby reducing the task of presenting a course as well as making course
leadership more fun as a team task. Also, last August we offered a "mini-semester"
four weeks long instead of our usual eight week semesters. That became
an easy way for new course leaders to try it before committing to a full
semester.
From Kali Lightfoot, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, U. of
S. Maine, Portland
Since we are currently talking about how big we want to be, I would be
curious to know how you came to the decision to limit your enrollment
to 325. We have been taking-all-comers.
From Bob Peterson, Elder Quest, Provo, UT
I would be interested in your answer as well.
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May 17, 2008
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