VI NATIONAL MEETING – Alicante
Locality: Alicante
Date: 15/04/2002
Organisation: University of Alicante
Content
1. Introduction
In the closing of the V National Meeting of University Programmes for Older Adults, celebrated from 5th to 7th of April 2001 in the University of La Laguna, with the title “Towards an intergenerational university”, the University of Alicante suggested to the specialists, programmes' heads and students who met there, to be the venue for the celebration of the next meeting, which will be shared again by academic heads, specialists and students. April or May of 2002 are the most suitable dates for its celebration.
It was also agreed in the V National Meeting, that the meeting in Alicante must be jointly prepared by the hosts and a preparatory committee that will help them by writing down the content of the meeting, including Mr José Arnay, from the University of La Laguna; Mr Juan Antonio Lorenzo, from the Complutense University of Madrid; Mr Josep Mª Sabaté i Boch, of the University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona; and Mrs Dolores Zahonero Virgili from the IMSERSO.
Firstly, and coinciding with the Older Adults' State Council on 21st and 22nd of June 2001, we suggest to convene the following institutions and people who would integrate the scientific committee of the VI Meeting:
- Pontifical University of Salamanca: Mrs Adoración Sánchez Holgado
- University of Sevilla: Mr Manuel Velázquez Clavijo, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology
- University of Alicante: Mrs Concepción Bru Ronda, Professor of National Geographical Analysis
- Complutense University of Madrid: Mr Juan A. Lorenzo
- University of Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona: Mr Josep Mª Sabaté i Boch, Professor of Modern History
- University of La Laguna: Mr José Arnay Puerta, Professor.
- University of Santiago de Compostela: Mr José María Mayán
- University of the Balearic Islands: Mrs Carmen Orté
- University of Murcia: Mrs Francisca Pérez Llamas
- IMSERSO, Mrs Dolores Zahonero Virgili
2. Infrastructure.
Due to the expected guests in the meeting, between 300 and 350 people, this meeting may be celebrated in the Acting Hall of the Aulario II in the University of Alicante – Campus of San Vicente del Raspeig. Ultimately, if this number of people is exceeded, it will be celebrated in the Paraninfo of the University of Alicante, which can accommodate up to 800 people and the University will bring to the Congress.
3. Structure of the Programming.
* Purely institutional and formal Opening Day
* Morning: Accreditations and formal opening in the Aula Magna of the Aulario II of the University. Lecture given by the Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University Extension of the University of Alicante, the Mr General Director of the IMSERSO, the Mr General Director of Universities and the Mr Mayor-President of the Alicante City Council. In this opening, the video of the Permanent University of the University of Alicante could be shown.
* Midday: Attendants lunch in the Social Club 1, located at the Campus.
* Afternoon:
- 1st Work-session: only a talk and discussion or round table
- Walk along the University, visiting the University Museum and the General Library, as well as a touring along the most emblematic places in the Campus.
- Reception of the Vice-Chancellor in the Aula Magna of the Aulario II, in order to finish the session with the performance of the Resident Quartet of the University of Alicante.
- Wine of honour in the building's hall
* The two next meetings will be developed in the assembly hall of the Aulario II or in the Paraninfo, at a morning and afternoon session, being possible to split into working groups in another rooms of the university.
* Two sessions per day, and two conferences or round tables in each one would be developed, except for the last afternoon in which the closing ceremony would be celebrated presided by the Mr Vice-Chancellor in order to continue with a farewell dinner to be celebrated in the Santa Barbara's Castle of Alicante offered by Alicante City Hall.
Special attention must be paid to the programme and to the timetables, not exceeding the time for the lunch-break (13:00h) in order to resume the sessions at 17:00h.
The participants would be preferably accommodated in hotels of Alicante, from where they would be taken by bus to the meeting in the university campus. All around the campus there are Colleges and University Residences where the scholarship student holders could be accommodated.
4. Content of the Meeting:
According to the agreement already entered into the V National Meeting of University Programmes for Older Adults celebrated in La Laguna, and as the conclusions of the same reflect, the central issue of the VI Meeting in Alicante will be about the Framework Programme: “Framework Models for the University Programmes for Older Adults”. Being this the central issue, other sessions could be developed around: the possible common guidelines regulating the proper academic certificate or diploma, the access systems to regulated courses from the university programmes for older adults, the continuity of the programmes and the researching and exchanging programmes in Universities carrying out them.
Apart from the general sessions in the meeting, a parallel session to academic responsible people and technicians of the university programmes for older adults will be developed.
5. Preliminary Programme.
The content of the general programme and the specific technical session will be detailed in the next documents which will be already agreed by the Scientific Committee.
6. Complementary Programme to the VI Meeting of University Programmes for Older Adults.
As part of the complementary activities, two kind of cultural and recreational activities are proposed:
* Campus activities of the University:
- Concert of the University of Alicante's quartet.
- Visit to the University of Alicante's museum – M.U.A
* External activities:
- The ones offered in collaboration with the City Hall of Alicante and Elche, the Provincial Council, Terra Mítica leisure complex and Huerto del Cura Hotel.
- Visit to the Museum of modern art La Asegurada
- Visit to the MARQ – Archaeological Museum of Alicante.
- Archaeological remains of the Lucentum city (old Alicante), and la Alcudia (old location of Elche)
- Lunch in the Hotel Huerto del Cura and walking around its Garden in the Palmeral of Elche.
- Visit to the leisure complex Terra Mítica of Benidorm.
- Cultural itineraries through the cities of Alicante and Elche, in collaboration with the tourist offices of these cities.
- And ultimately any recreational or cultural contribution made by these entities or others with which we are managing the development of the meeting.
VI NATIONAL MEETING
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES FOR OLDER ADULTS
from 15th to 18th of April 2002
HONOUR COMMITTEE
-Representatives of the University of Alicante:
*Mr Vice-Chancellor of the University of Alicante
*Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University Extension
*Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Centres and Studies
*Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University Extension
*Mrs Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Students.
- Representatives of the IMSERSO:
*General Director of the IMSERSO, Mr Alberto Galerón de Miguel
*General Secretary of the IMSERSO, Mr José Mª Sagardía Gómez de Liaño
*General Deputy Director of the Gerontological Plan and University Programmes for Older Adults of the IMSERSO, Mr Jesús Norberto Fernández Muñoz
*Study coordinator and technical support, Mrs Mª Ángeles Aguado Sánchez.
- Representatives of the Generalitat Valenciana:
*General Director of Universities
* Others to appoint
- Representatives of the Alicante City Council:
*Mr Mayor of the Alicante City Council
- Representatives of the Provincial Council:
*Mr President of the Provincial Council of Alicante.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTE
* Mr Josep Mª Sabaté i Boch of the Rovira i Virgili University of Tarragona.
* Mr José Arnay Puerta, University of La Laguna.
* Mrs Adoración Sánchez Holgado, of the Pontifical University of Salamanca.
* Mr Manuel Velázquez Clavijo, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology of the University of Sevilla.
* Mrs Concepción Bru Ronda, Director of the Alicante University Venue. Permanent University.
* Mr Juan A. Lorenzo, of the Complutense University of Madrid.
* Mr José María Mayán, of the University of Santiago de Compostela.
* Mrs Carmen Orté, of the University of the Balearic Islands.
* Mrs Francisca Pérez Llamas, of the University of Murcia.
* Mrs Dolores Zahonero Virgili of the IMSERSO.
ORGANISING COMMITTE
-By the University of Alicante:
*Mr José Carlos Rovira Soler, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University Extension.
*Mrs Concepción Bru Ronda, Director of the Alicante University Venue. Permanent University.
*Mr José Segundo Álvarez García, Specialised Manager of the Permanent University.
*Mrs Mª Luisa Bañuls Mateu, II Manager of the Permanent University.
-By the IMSERSO:
*Mr José María Sagardía Gómez de Liaño, General Secretary of the IMSERSO.
*Mr Jesús Norberto Fernández Muñoz, General Deputy Director of the Gerontological Plan and University Programmes for Older Adults of the IMSERSO.
*Mrs Esther López Martín-Berdinós, Head of the specialised training service.
*Mrs Dolores Zahonero Virgili
*Mr Antonio Martínez Maroto
CONCLUSIONS
1. General Premises
*1.1. The University Studies for Older Adults and the Programmes which develop them, are an indisputable reality in the society of the 21st century. Nowadays in Spain almost 22.000 students study these courses offered by 47 university programmes.
*1.2. A priority institutional care is required by the University Programmes for Older Adults, as they mean the knowledge and the rights and duties of the today's society.
*1.3. A framework model of the University Programmes for Older Adults is needed. It has been repeatedly requested in previous meetings in order to:
Empower the development and future content of the University Programmes for Older Adults.
Establish common guidelines which lead to get the recognition of these studies by the competent Authorities and ensuring the support and promotion of these programmes.
Consolidate those efforts as a social and learning needing and apart from political and economic changes.
*1.4. The framework model provided to the VI Meeting aims to incorporate the proposals of the different University Programmes for Older Adults existing in Spain, which information has been recollected through a questionnaire.
2. Aims and objectives of the Programmes
*2.1. The general aims' starting point is the validity of lifelong learning, and should be concreted taking into account:
1. The needs and interest of these students as older people, so that the courses are a rewarding experience.
2. The special features of the older adults learning, which can involve some limitations together with another special possibilities of the experience.
3. The different sociocultural and territorial realities existing.
4. The quality and rigour proposed in the University for any other university level, not focused as a professionalising tool but as a personal training.
*2.2. The objectives must integrate the social and training dimension of these programmes, proposing the following:
1. Social Objectives:
- To improve the quality of life, through the knowledge and the relations established in the university area.
- To enhance the development of the intergenerational relations, facilitating the transfer of knowledge and attitudes through the experience.
- To develop the training for voluntary workers in collaboration with the Social Services and the Community, as well as other institutions.
- To facilitate resources for the adaptation to the change and to the contemporary realities.
2. Training objectives:
- To provide a university training that facilitates the development of autonomous learning.
- To spread, to extend or to update the knowledge and the culture between the older adults.
- To promote a better knowledge of the environment to obtain a major profit of the leisure activities offered (cultural, physical, intellectual...) in the society.
- To favour the personal development of skills and values of the older people from the perspective of the lifelong learning.
- To facilitate the access to other university studies to those persons who, after studying specific trainings for older adults, can prove that they have the needed training to course them.
3. Structure and Organisation:
*3.1. The purpose about the basic structure of the University Programmes for Older adults should:
1. Be reduced to a certain points which allow the validation and homogenisation between the programmes given in different university centres, avoiding the overcrowding.
2. Tend to the full integration of the University Programmes for Older Adults in the teaching organisation of the university, not forgetting the specific characteristics of the university environment, as well as trying the active integration of the older adults students in the academic level, researching and university extension.
*3.2. These programmes must meet the basic requirements of the university academic planning which make it possible to discern between the different training options for older adults that exist at the present time. These requirements are:
1. To be a higher training programme, presented by a public or private University, regarding to institutions defined by law, with a stable training plan which will be approved by the appropriate university organs of government.
2. They will be directed and coordinated by a team appointed by the University, which becomes responsible for its development, monitor, evaluation, reform and update, in accordance with the norms of the university academic planning.
3. To be realized in the university space and in a proper ambience whenever it is possible, and in any case offering the media and the facilities of the University (faculties, Departments, Classrooms, Laboratories, Libraries, etc.) without any type of discrimination and favouring the coexistence with younger students.
4. The responsibility of teaching corresponds to the university professorship in its different categories. It will be sought for assistance the collaboration of other experts and collaborators, whose knowledge and merits could be useful for the formation of these older people, and who will take part in the same conditions as the professorship of the rest of the university qualifications.
5. To promote, if possible, the infrastructure in regard to the financing and to the administrative management that will have to be sufficient and comparable to the received by the rest of the members of the University Community for the right rendering of academic service and of the offer of university extension and researching.
*3.3. The organisation of the study plan will have to be oriented to the achievement of objectives stated with the following configuration:
1. Minimum duration: 3 academic courses, with a total of 400-450 hours.
2. The training will be organised in three kinds of subjects: compulsory and optional, of at least 20 hours of duration, complementary activities will be also included completing the academic offer.
3. The subjects will be organised around the following areas of knowledge:
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- Legal and Economic Sciences
- Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Biomedical Sciences
- Technical Sciences
*3.4. This minimal structure can be completed with the second cycle, with successive courses and other offers so that these programmes fulfil the function to provide lifelong trainings and to facilitate the achievement of the intergenerational relation. The following ones are considered:
1. To promote the participation of older adults in subjects offered in ruled studies of different qualifications.
2. To introduce researching in the training of these programmes through working groups in which specialists of diverse areas of knowledge will take part and where the participation of the older adults is active, opening them a new field of action at regional, national and international level.
*3.5. The orientation and the methodology of these teachings will maintain the balance of a theoretical and practical model taking into account the active enrolment of the older adults students.
* 3.6. These programmes should incorporate an initial assessment (both at starting to access the programme, and in each subject, in its case), an assessment process (paying attention to the development of the programme in all its aspects), an assessment of results, as well as an impact assessment (which allows verifying the actual application of the knowledge and experience achieved by the students at the University).
* 3.7. The University, as institution devoted to higher training and opened to the study and research, is the appropriate institutional framework to incorporate, these programmes for older people, the contributions by the continual theoretical and practical development, methodological review and applied research, which will guide the adaptation to the continuous changes and requirements of the society that it serves.
4. Participation of the older adults in the University and in the University Programmes for Older Adults.
* 4.1. The University Programmes for Older Adults must stimulate the participation through various forms as it brings benefits for individual and social welfare.
* 4.2. The older adults participation in the University area can be of two types: formal and relational. The formal participation is developed from the rules and/or regulations, while the relational involvement makes it from the interest and abilities of older adults, which are put in concrete form in very different activities.
* 4.3. The formal participation occurs at three levels: the administrative participation (students' card, access to services), participation linked to the academic structure of the programme, in other words, the academic level of the programme, and the participation in the general mechanisms of participation of the University. This participation is however conditioned by the progress in the systematisation of University Programmes for Older Adults in the educational framework, - that has been termed as structural maturity of the programmes-, systematisation which should allow training opportunities offered by the programs to be flexible, open and creative.
* 4.4. Relational participation has a broad development expressed throughout various activities and initiatives such as: the intergenerational relationship or the development of different types of volunteering projects. This level of participation gives strength and allows to perceive the specificity of University Programmes for Older Adults compared with regular university programmes. The relational involvement brings great benefits to the people involved, as well as to the programmes and contributes to better address the development of formal participation, in order to progress in participation at academic level, both specific and general.
* 4.5. The existence of associations is emerging as a facilitating factor for the participation, regulated or relational. The partnerships will be able to provide an established, formalized framework, of group or collective action, and let sharing interests, articulating the feeling of belonging to a group, and providing a stable framework for the development of actions, which may originate from the identification of a problem and an interest in addressing it, or start to broaden the activity perspectives of the Association.
* 4. 6.Through the relational participation, and by means of the associations, the continuity of the activities and its articulation are helped, as well as the extending of activities and the connection with other experiences (projects promoted within or outside the university; with associations of older adults or with other associations), in addition to facilitating the conditions in which the activities are carried out.
* 4. 7. Nevertheless the association’s existence does not replace the basic mechanisms of participation of the students in the university, but it is considered to be a mechanism that facilitates the participation at level of relation with the academic structure of the programme.
* 4. 8. In order to progress with the participation in the area of the university programmes it is considered necessary:
1. To promote the training of the older adults to be participative (skills and conditions)
2. To carry out network work that allows to share, exchange and cooperate among participation experiences, within and out of the university, and between these, especially with the existing ones in the local area.
3. To promote participatory researches which allow to have a better idea about the diverse forms of participation and the dynamics supporting them.
5. Participation of the institutions involved in the University Programmes for Older Adults.
*5.1. The social institution as the IMSERSO and the social services of the Autonomous Communities which started in Spain the financial support and shared the institutional support of the University Programmes for Older Adults, will continue promoting them with a clear social orientation.
* 5.2. The IMSERSO will encourage everything that can help older persons to age with dignity and this will boost and foster innovative proposals on the lines of action and competence of the IMSERSO.
* 5.3. The general consensus reached on regular academic and legislatively the University educations, pursues the direct involvement of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport and the definitive impulse to the development of long-life learning education policies at University level, avoiding the precariousness of this education sector and responding to equality of opportunities and educational, cultural, social and economic development of a society for all ages.
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