8th STATE CONFERENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS FOR OLDER ADULTS. Older adults and the university: a bet for lifelong learning

Locality: Zamora

Date: 01/01/2004

Organizes: Universities of Castilla y León, AEPUM

Content:

At the meeting to create the University Programs for Older Adults’ State Association held in Madrid, on the 27th of February 2004, those in charge of the University Programs for Older Adults, there gathered, agreed to accept the proposal of the Experience’s Inter-University Program (in which the 8 Universities of Castilla y León participate) to let these Universities organize the VIII State Conference of the University Programs for Older Adults with the cooperation of the Castilla y León’s Committee and the IMSERSO. It seems convenient for this Meeting to think about and bring proposals for the University and Lifelong learning, given our trajectory up to now and the scope that these activities have reached: these activities are already being carried out by forty-three Universities in more than sixty venues, serving more than twenty thousand people.

The Meeting will be organized in three sections:

1. Lifelong learning
2. Social implication
3. Opening of the University to the rural field.

Meeting’s Agenda

Locality: Zamora.

Monday, 15th of November 2004: 18.00: Opening ceremony. 18.45: Presentation: Lifelong learning: How does the University deal with this kind of learning? 20.00: Alollano’s Performance. 21.30: Dinner and accommodation.

Tuesday, 16th of November 2004: 9.30: Working sessions. Summary and debate. 11.30: Coffee break. 12.00: Experts Panel. 14.30: Lunch. 16.30: Cultural visit: Romanesque Churches and Ethnographic Museum. 19.00: Reception of Zamora’s City Council. 20.00: Free time around Zamora. 21.00: Return to the Hotel El Convento. 21.30: Dinner and accommodation.

Wednesday, 17th November 2004. 9.30: Social Implication of the University Programs for Older Adults. 11.30: Coffee break. 11.30: Conclusions. 13.00: Closing ceremony. 14.00: Lunch and registration for the VIII Meeting. *A maximum of five students from each University (not venue). There will be a reservations list and more students may be accepted if there are places left from other Universities. * The students’ registrations must be handled by the person in charge of the Older Adults’ Program of each university. (No students will be accepted without their University’s approval)* The registration period for participants is open. Lists with the names of the students and the interested people in charge and/or teachers can be sent. Registration price up to the 11th of October 2004: * 70 €(Registration and meals included) * 100 € (Registration, meals and accommodation included) From the 12th of October to the 5th of November 2004 (deadline) * 100 € (Registration and meals included) * 130 € (Registration, meals and accommodation included) Presentationof conclusions: Those interested in presenting comclusions: theory reflection and/or specific activities’ description in any of the three sections of the Meeting must sent a summary in advance. The summaries must be sent before the 21st of June and the presentation of conclusions before the 5th of October 2004 to: Secretaría VIII Encuentro Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca C/ Compañía, 5 37002, SALAMANCA Tfno: 923- 27 71 44 Fax: 923- 27 71 01 E-mail: univ.experiencia@upsa.es The Schedule and registration forms will be sent soon. FOR OLDER ADULTS Zamora 15th - 17th of November 2004

General conclusions:

1. A legislative support to a University that will really favor the Lifelong learning is absolutely necessary. That means an institutional acknowledgement that will standardize the academic aspects of the University Programs for Older Adults, responding to the new demands of this group of people that face the challenges of population’s active aging.

2. The Institutional standardization of the programs must imply their tacit acknowledgement in the LOU’s planned legislative reforms, as well as the alteration of the Royal Decree of the 22th of January 2004 about Universities entrance regulation and the consolidation processes of these studies to be incorporated to other degrees.

3. The need to add to the new Degree’s official catalogue the specifications about the university programs for older adults as a way to reach the needed standardization and official acknowledgement.

4. As well as the modifications to the current programs for older adults to make them adequate to the present legislation, it is also necessary to promote and improve the current University Programs which aim is not professionalization but the improvement of people and society through lifelong education and social implication in the university frame.

5. With this non-professionalizing perspective, the demand is to recover one of the historical purposes of the University: to educate the person in it’s whole.

6. We highlight the importance of promoting the programs’ old students’ bond with the university to channel and strengthen the activities of cultural and social implication.

Working Session conclusions

Working group 1: Lifelong learning in the University frame. 1. To adequate the older adults’ programs to the experiences and knowledge of the students, for what an evaluation of the teaching methodologies must be carried out to make them adequate as much as possible to their needs and demands. Methodologies that could consider, among others, the Life Cycle Theory, the Participatory action research or the QSR NUDIST Software. All this in the cultural, social and political environment of the older adult. 2. To consider the convenience of using the institutional evaluation of the university programs for older adults as a way to improve its quality. 3. To introduce research as a priority resource in our university programs, so that the students will be able to develop and increase their intellectual capacities even more. This activity will improve their self-esteem, making them more participative in their learning. 4. To include, as far as possible, subjects of the official degrees to the older adults’ programs, to increase and develop intergenerational integration among old and young people.

Working group 2: Social implication 1. The older adults’ implication in voluntary service activities would go hand in hand with the proposal of creating an Institutional center that would channel them. 2. In the area of the new technologies and its establishment as a way of knowing and spreading culture, the students with more experience in using these new technologies would help those with less experience, so that they will be the usual tool to access information. It could include young students registered in official degrees. 3. Regarding the expansion of these Programs to include the rural area, more support must be given to the groups of people with less possibilities of receiving university education. 4. Regarding female participation and taking into account that the women’s percentage is higher in these Programs, we understand that a change in the woman’s traditional role in our society has taken place. 5. Besides improving the students’ self-esteem and estimulating their cognitive capacities, these Programs contribute avoiding the exclusion of those students.

Working group 3: Reaching the rural area. 1. The existence of a scattered, and in many cases aged, rural population, requires a planning and imagination’s effort to bring culture and the university to a group that has traditionally been marginalized. 2. To highlight the importance of including the University Programs for Older Adults in Lifelong learning, not in Social Work, achieving that way really equal opportunities. 3. To use the New Technologies to link rural areas to the University Programs for Older Adults, making good use of the possibilities of the E-learning and the Webquest that allow the students to build their own learning by netsurfing. 4. To use the knowledge acquired by the older adults in the University Programs, so that they will bring development and progress to their rural and family environment. 5. To highlight voluntary service as one of the most adequate ways of social implication for the students of the University Programs for Older Adults, who are committed and use the acquired knowledge and sociocultural entertainment as a strategy for cultural democratization of the rural field.

Actas VIII Encuentro Nacional de Programas Universitarios para Personas Mayores [PDF]